The Board of Directors of the 2021 Venice Biennale has appointed Kazuyo Sejima as president of the international jury, in charge of awarding mainly the Golden Lion for Best National Participation, the Golden Lion for the Best participant, and the Silver Lion for a promising young participant. In addition, they have also selected four other jury members from Peru, Lebanon, Ghana-Scotland, and Italy. The Awards Ceremony will take place in Venice on Monday, August 30th, 2021.
Upon recommendation by Curator Hashim Sarkis, the International Jury of the 17th International Architecture Exhibition, which will take place between 22 May until 21 November 2021, will include Kazuyo Sejima as president from Japan, Sandra Barclay from Peru, Lamia Joreige from Lebanon, Lesley Lokko from Ghana-Scotland and Luca Molinari from Italy. Responsible primarily to award the Golden and Silver Lions, the jury may also grant a maximum of one special mention to National Participations and a maximum of two special mentions to the participants in the International Exhibition How will we live together?
Read on to discover more about the members of the International jury.
Kazuyo Sejima - president (Japan)
Architect and winner of the Pritzker Prize in 2010, she curated the Biennale Architettura (People meet in architecture) that same year. Owner and founder of the firm SANAA with Ryue Nishizawa, she is distinguished by her commitment to architectural form as the field’s primary domain of intervention in the social and spatial realms.
Sandra Barclay (Peru), an architect working between Lima and Paris, was the co-curator for the Peruvian Pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 2016, winning a Special Mention of the Jury. She brings a heightened awareness of the poetic role of architecture as a transformative building act in extreme contexts.
Lamia Joreige (Lebanon) is a visual artist and filmmaker who lives and works in Beirut. Co-founder and co-director of the Beirut Art Center, she offers a very acute view of architecture and the city as cultural material and as rich domains for artistic expression.
Lesley Lokko (Ghana-Scotland) is a successful architect and writer who lives between Johannesburg, London, Accra and Edinburgh. She was the founder and director of the Graduate School of Architecture of the University of Johannesburg (2014-2019) and Dean of the Spitzer School of Architecture City College of New York (2019-2021). She is a Visiting Professor at the Bartlett School of Architecture. Lokko brings deep and critical perspective on the relationship between architecture, social, and economic development and the environment.
Luca Molinari (Italy) is an architect, historian, critic, and curator. In 2010 he was the curator of the Italian Pavilion at the 12th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. He is the scientific director of the M9 Museum in Mestre (Venice). He is a Full Professor of Architectural Theory and Design in the Department of Architecture and Industrial Design of the Università degli Studi della Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli” in Naples and PhD in Theory and History of Architecture at TU Delft (NL). His profile ensures a vast array of angles from which he views architecture, its public role, and the agency of the architect in society.
Info via la Biennale Architettura 2021.
