WAX on show at La Biennale di Venezia
It was a pleasure be able to experience, have our work showcased and sponsor the 2023 La Biennale di Venezia, in conjunction with Ashley Halliday Architects.
This year’s exhibition in the Australian Pavilion named ‘unsettling QUEENSTOWN’, explored the themes of decolonisation and decarbonisation in architecture. unsettling QUEENSTOWN “engages the question of the relations between people and the environment under logics of colonialism and resource extraction, through the lens of a place in which these are brought into sharp focus”.
The exhibition focuses on the legacies of two settlements – a copper-mining town in Queenstown, Tasmania and Queenstown, South Australia. Both “bear the scars of colonisation and resource extraction”.
Our project Yitpi Yartapuultiku for the City of Port Adelaide Enfield with Ashley Halliday Architects, featured in the Open Archive of the Australian Pavilion. The Open Archive is the operative component of the exhibition: a collection of ‘tactics’ – condensed nuggets of architectural intelligence responding to the challenge of decolonisation in architecture – collected from the profession across Australia. Visitors were able to detach and gather the tactics, to compile their own personal catalogue to take away.
We were proud to see the project team’s efforts up on the wall and that the design ‘tactics’ taken from our work are:
- Unlearning – Shifting perspective by looking for, connecting with and nurturing the unseen, the non-tangible.
- Joining – Cultural architecture must join, not separate.
- Time – Making time to facilitate a more relational and holistic collaboration process.
- Deep listening – Transcending superficial observation.
- Integrating Architecture & Landscape Architecture Leadership – The paired design leadership of architect and landscape architect.
Learn more about Yitpi Yartapuultiku
The exhibition is open to the public until November 26, 2023.