In the framework of Venice Biennale Session and following the outcomes of the first edition of the UNISCAPE’s Forum, held last year in Brussels at NEB Festival, the University of Nova Gorica and UNISCAPE in collaboration with Merging Ecologies launched the Uniscape Forum for students and early-stage researchers.
The main goal is opening up the dialogue among Europears researchers and their peers from Africa to exchange and discuss together landscape stories, imaginaries, hopes and ambitions.
On Saturday 17 th June at the Venice Arsenale Merging Ecologies presented the outcomes and the winners of the competition African Landscapes on the move, to animate the collaborative imagination and trigger the debate.
The Laboratory of the Future, the title of 18th International Architecture Biennale, has as its essential gesture the “change”, … “What does it mean to be ‘an agent of change’?«… as stated by Lesley Lokko, curator of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition.
“For the first time ever, the spotlight has fallen on Africa and the African Diaspora, that fluid and enmeshed culture of people of African descent that now straddles the globe. What do we wish to say? How will what we say change anything? And, perhaps most importantly of all, how will what we say interact with and infuse what ‘others’ say, so that the exhibition is not a single story, but multiple stories that reflect the vexing, gorgeous kaleidoscope of ideas, contexts, aspirations, and meanings that is every voice responding to the issues of its time?”
“It is often said that culture is the sum total of the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves. Whilst it is true, what is missing in the statement is any acknowledgement of who the ‘we’ in question is. In architecture particularly, the dominant voice has historically been a singular, exclusive voice, whose reach and power ignores huge swathes of humanity — financially, creatively, conceptually — as though we have been listening and speaking in one tongue only. The ‘story’ of architecture is therefore incomplete. Not wrong, but incomplete. It is in this context particularly that exhibitions matter”.
“Central to all the projects is the primacy and potency of one tool: the imagination – Lokko said. It is impossible to build a better world if one cannot first imagine it”
[see: https://www.labiennale.org/en/architecture/2023/18th-exhibition ]
As stated by Lesley Lokko, Africa is “the place on this planet where all issues of equity, race, hope and fear converge and merge. Anthropologically we are all Africans. And what happens in Africa happens to all of us”.
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PROGRAMME
Friday 16.06
17.00 | IUAV University – Palazzo Badoer [Calle de la Laca, 2468]
UNISCAPE General Assembly Meeting 2023
Saturday 17.06
11.00 – 19.00 | Arsenale and Giardini della Biennale
Visit of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, focusing on the theme of the exhibition in relation with Landscape.
Meeting with the participants of the exhibition “African landscapes on the move”, organised by Merging Ecologies
Sunday 18.06
11.00 Arsenale | Sala delle Armi
UNG & UNISCAPE Forum meet African Landscape on the Move
Exhibition awards (Merging Ecologies) and forum with students.
Event Direction
Saša Dobricic, University of Nova Gorica | sasa.dobricic@ung.si
Marco Acri, University of Nova Gorica | marco.acri@ung.si
Tokie Brown, Merging Ecologies
Tessa Matteini, UNISCAPE, University of Florence | tessa.matteini@uniscape.eu
Coordination
Tommaso Zanaica, UNISCAPE | tommaso.zanaica@uniscape.eu
