Shumi Bose, Jack Self and Finn Williams have been selected to curate the British Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Biennale - "Reporting from the Front." Chosen by the British Council for their proposal "Home Economics," the team will "explore the future of the home through a series of full-scale domestic interiors."
“Home Economics addresses the frontline of British architecture: the family home," says the winning team. "The exhibition will ask urgent questions about the future of housing. Social and technological changes are collapsing the patterns of domestic life - but the design of the home hasn't caught up. Can the house ever escape its economic status as an asset? Should our homes still be considered private spaces? How do new types of families and households produce new spatial needs? What are the models of ownership, finance and work that make these conditions possible?"
“Home Economics will convert the British Pavilion into a series of full scale domestic spaces. We will invite a multi-disciplinary team of architects, artists, designers and developers to produce immersive 1:1 environments, which challenge the status quo and propose new futures for the British home. Life is changing; we must design for it.”
Following the announcement, Vicky Richardson, Director Architecture, Design, Fashion at the British Council, said: “We look forward to working with Shumi, Jack and Finn on Home Economics, which will grapple with how architecture can respond to the changing ways that people live today. It will make an exciting exhibition which we hope will highlight the relevance of the ideas presented at the Venice Architecture Biennale to public audiences; as well as continuing the recent tradition of using the British Pavilion as a space for research and debate.”
Home Economics was selected over three other shortlisted proposals by a committee that included:
- Vicky Richardson, Director of Architecture Design Fashion, British Council (Chair)
- Rob Gregory, Programme manager at Bristol Architecture Centre, History and Theory Course leader at University of Bath
- Eddie Heathcote, Architecture and Design Critic for the Financial Times
- Joanna Hogg, filmmaker and curator
- Charlie Hussey, Director of Sutherland Hussey Harris
- Marie Bak Mortensen, Head of Exhibitions, RIBA
- Teresa Stoppani, Professor of Architecture and Head of The Leeds School of Architecture at Leeds Beckett University
