Exhibitors: cave_bureau, Palestine Regeneration Team (PART), Mae Ling Lokko & Gustavo Crembil, Thandi Loewenso
Curated by Owen Hopkins, Kathryn Yusoff, Kabage Karanja, Stella Mutegi
Commissioned by Sevra Davis, British Council
Local consultant and coordinator for installation,
Venice Fellowship Programme, Pavilion management
The British Pavilion has been awarded the Special Mention for National Pavilion, with the following motivation:
“A dialogue between Great Britain and Kenya about reparation and renewal. The pavilion reveals architecture as architecture that is defined by extraction that produce inequality and environmental degradation. The Jury notes attempts to imagine a new relation between architecture and geology. The jury also notes the Venice Fellowship program as a notable initiative for knowledge exchange between the three countries: Venice, Great Britain and Kenya.”
– The International Jury composed of Hans Ulrich Obrist (president, Switzerland); Paola Antonelli (Italy); and Mpho Matsipa (South Africa)
Since the collaboration with M+B Studio started, the British Pavilion was also presented with a Special Mention in 2023 for Dancing Before the Moon at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition and won the Golden Lion in 2022 for Sonia Boyce’s exhibition Feeling Her Way.
GBR: Geology of Britannic Repair is a unique UK–Kenya collaboration that seeks to unearth ‘other architectures’ – alternatives that offer possibilities for repair, restitution and renewal.
GBR – Geology of Britannic Repair aims to re-centre architecture’s fundamental relationship to geology, shifting how we see its past and present and re-orienting its future otherwise. With the Great Rift Valley as the exhibition’s geological and conceptual focus, we have brought together a series of installations that propose ‘other architectures’ defined by their relationship to the ground, their resistance to conventional, extractive ways of working, and that are resilient in the face of climate breakdown and social and political upheaval. Turning the British Pavilion inside out, we hope the exhibition will become a vital site for reimagining the relationship between architecture and the earth.
– Curatorial Team
Exploring the relationship between architecture and colonisation as parallel, interconnected practices, the exhibition is made up of a series of installations by Cave_bureau, Mae-ling Lokko and Gustavo Crembil, Thandi Loewenson and the Palestine Regeneration Team / PART (Yara Sharif, Nasser Golzari and Murray Fraser).
Rather than presenting fixed solutions, the exhibition seeks to uncover what architecture and colonialism have long marginalised, transforming the British Pavilion into a space for reimagining the relationship between architecture and the earth.
Find out more about the exhibition: venicebiennale.britishcouncil.org
Image credits: The British Pavilion “GBR: Geology of Britannic Repair” was commissioned by British Council for the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – la Biennale di Venezia. Image: Taran Wilhku
Film: John Ingle © British Council
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