Conversations on Venice brings together architects, educators, curators and community organisers who are involved in the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale. Originally scheduled to open in May 2020, the Biennale was postponed by a year to 2021 as a result of Covid-19. The theme chosen by Hashim Sarkis, the curator of this edition of the Biennale, How Will We Live Together? was more prophetic than anyone originally realised, with all participants having an additional year to reflect on not just their contributions but the role of architecture in a time of crisis. This series of conversations invites a selection of national pavilions and Biennale contributors, most of whom have connections to the AA, to discuss common themes that span across their installations in Venice and beyond to address issues of care, mutuality, context, collaboration and above all togetherness.
The silver lining of the obstacles and difficulties presented by Covid-19 were the new forms of collaboration and collective initiatives to engage new audiences that arose as a result of the pandemic. The Biennale is no exception to this rule and in addition to curating the Korean and UAE Pavilions, Hae-Won Shin and Wael Al Awar also initiated projects that extended the ambition and reach of the biennale beyond Venice. In this conversation they will each discuss their pavilions that address new and alternative forms of knowledge but also their involvement in setting up the Curators Collective and A Bench in Venice, and the legacy of such an unusual year in the biennale’s history. These initiatives best illustrate the importance of collective endeavours to overcome adversity and to find ways to move forward into an uncertain future together.
Hae-Won Shin is the curator of the Korean Pavilion at the 17th Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition. She initiated the National Pavilion Curators Collective (CC), which has grown into a coalition of architects that currently includes the curators of 48 of the National Pavilions participating in the Biennale. Based in Seoul, she founded the architecture practice lokaldesign in 2006, where she is Principal Architect. She was previously an adjunct professor at the Korea National University of Arts and the Chinese University of Hong Kong as an architect practicing in Architecture and Urban Design and research. She has worked on architecture and urban infrastructure projects at a wide range of scales, as well as public projects and urban design research. She has been involved in many international architecture exhibitions and cultural events, including the 6th Anyang Public Art Project in Korea and Out of the Ordinary in London (2019), and was a participant in the Korean Pavilion for the 10th Venice Biennale International Architecture Exhibition in 2006. In 2011 Hae-Won was recognised with an award for Public Design in Korea and received the Young Architect Award from the Korean Architects Institute in 2013.
Wael Al Awar founded waiwai (formerly ibda design) in 2009 as the principal architect, after moving back to the Middle East from Tokyo. waiwai is an award-winning multidisciplinary architecture, landscape, graphic and urban design studio with offices in Dubai and Tokyo. With interests in natural phenomena, landscape and formless diagrams of relations, Wael has a multi-disciplinary approach to design and is always looking to challenge conventional processes to push the boundaries of design. His projects layer his individual design sensibilities into an architecture of natural light, time, structure and landscape. By aligning with natural phenomena, Wael seeks to create an architecture that is more than man-made fabrication, but instead remains open to adaptation and appropriation. The spaces that emerge from his approach are site-specific provocations that encourage unexpected experiences, activities and behaviors. Wael Al Awar is currently a Curator of the National Pavilion of the UAE for the 17th Architecture Biennale di Venezia 2020 & 2021 and winner of the Golden Lion Award.
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