For the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, the Pavilion of Ukraine presents an exhibition titled “Before the Future,” focusing on the paradox of “building a future from a collapsing present.” The intervention reimagines two spaces, one in Arsenale and one in Giardini, to evoke protective structures that have become emblematic of feelings of safety while under threat for Ukrainian society. The curatorial team, composed of Iryna Miroshnykova and Oleksii Petrov, of the Kyiv-based architectural office ФОРМА, and Borys Filonenko, independent curator, art critic, and lecturer, set out to work with specialists from numerous fields to further explore the theme “Laboratory of the Future.”
The Pavilion of Ukraine aims to draw attention not simply to the future, but also to the conditions of the past and present that inform it and provide the safety necessary for the construction of the future. The installations aim to give a physical form to these conditions, to offer shelter and defense, while a public program invites the audience to engage in the collaborative processes and discussions that are occurring today in Ukraine.
Read on to discover the statement from the official press release.
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Lesley Lokko on the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale: "I Hope It Provokes the Audience to Think Differently and More Empathetically"In answer to the concept articulated by Lesley Lokko, curator of the main exhibition of La Biennale, this year’s project finds the team looking to environmental and community factors that foster resilience through a multiplicity of stories and approaches. This rhizomatic format is made present in the two exhibition spaces through a parallel program designed and implemented by five collectives formed from members of Ukraine’s creative and intellectual communities. For the full six months of the exhibition, participants from the fields of art, architecture, sociology, ecology, politics, anthropology, as well as other disciplines, will work together in five self-selected groups to present events on five thematic topics: reconstruction, commemoration, ecology, education, and future. According to the curators, this structure is intended to eschew competitive approaches in favor of discursive solutions and actions of solidarity. Participants have been encouraged to invite additional members from their individual networks, and articulate their own program and a written thematic expression addressing their topic, which will be available in the exhibition booklet.
Two spaces have been made available for these proposed dialogues, actions and interventions. The installation at the Arsenale finds the normally lofty hall transformed into a dark, low-ceilinged space that enfolds the viewer in the safety of a closed sky and thick walls—physical barriers to harm. The structure manifests what the Pavilion team refers to as a “new comfort”, where claustrophobic, windowless, or even previously abandoned spaces can become vital sites for incubating plans for survival and hope for the future. In the Giardini, an earthworks installation under the open sky focuses similarly on the perceptual transformations that have occurred in Ukraine regarding formerly overlooked elements of the built and natural environments. The intervention draws on the form of the Serpent's Wall, a network of 10th century fortifications in Kyiv region that the centuries have weathered into simple mounds and hills snaking through rewilded local landscapes. Once largely forgotten by contemporary residents of Kyiv, the buried functions of these mounds were reactivated during the first days of the full-scale russian invasion, slowing the invading army’s advance towards the capital.
As with the unlikely new comfort of dark enclosed spaces or the contemporary functionality of medieval fortifications, Before the Future’s curators invite the viewer “to go beyond the site of the pavilion and into the paradoxical situations in which architects find themselves today. Before the future is established, the possibility that architects might construct and create something new coexists with the constant destruction of the past and present.” This paradox of building a future from a collapsing present is at the core of not just the exhibition, but also the future of Ukraine and the many nations facing military threat and humanitarian crisis across the world.
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