Ukraine to present pavilion at Venice Biennale of Architecture after 9-year hiatus

Ukraine will participate in the international exhibition Biennale Architettura 2023, which will take place in Venice from May 20 to November 26. This will be the first time since 2014. This decision was made by the Ministry of Community and Territorial Development and Infrastructure of Ukraine.

The theme of this year’s Biennale Architettura is “Laboratory of the Future”. The name of the Ukrainian pavilion, “Facing the Future”, is a response to the overall theme, expressing the impossibility of building the future without Ukraine.

The Ukrainian program will be presented at two locations. A pavilion in the form of a low-ceilinged structure resembling a shelter will be set up in the Arsenale, where meetings and presentations will take place.

In the Giardini, a space resembling defensive earthworks will be opened. “The war has brought us back to close connections with the land. It protects, shelters, feeds and unites us,” the project description says. “Since the Middle Ages, defensive earthworks, the Zmijevi Valy, have been erected on the territory of Ukraine. Last year, they helped stop the enemy in Kyiv region.”

At Biennale Architettura 2023, representatives of the Ukrainian architectural community “will tell stories from inside their paradoxical context, sharing their experience with the world.” Participants will offer their own visions in different formats. This will be an open program, the script of which will develop over six months.

The commissioner of the pavilion will be the head of the State Tourism Development Agency, Maryana Oleskiv, and the curators will be Oleksiy Petrov, Iryna Myroshnykova, and Boris Filonenko.

Biennale Architettura is an international exhibition that takes place every two years in Venice. Its aim is to showcase architectural solutions to contemporary social, humanistic, and technological issues.

Images provided by SAME & Friends agency.