The Brazilian pavilion was announced as the recipient of the prestigious Golden Lion of the eighteenth Venice Architecture Biennale for the best national participation. The award-winning exhibitionEarth” (Earth), was curated by architects Gabriela de Matos and Paulo Tavares. The prize jury praised the duo for “an exhibition of research and architectural intervention that centers the philosophies and imaginaries of indigenous and black populations on modes of reparation”.
“We are very happy to have received this opportunity, inspired by Lesley Lokko [curator of this year’s Biennale], to present Brazil as a diasporic territory, with great ancestral contributions from Afro-Brazilian and indigenous communities,” said Matos and Tavares. “We believe that it is technologies that must be part of the solutions to create a different and more equal future for humanity and to restore and protect our natural world.”
“Earth” was divided into two distinct sections, with the two galleries of the modernist pavilion lined with earth, on which there were adobe plinths. The first segment, “Decolonizing the Canon,” celebrated the heritage, design, and landscape of indigenous peoples marginalized and displaced in the mid-20th century during the construction of Brasilia, the national capital designed by Oscar Niemeyer, while the second , “Places of Origin, Archeologies of the Future,” focused on historical and largely indigenous-built structures around Brazil, including the Iauaretê Waterfall of the Tukano, Arawak, and Maku; And Terreirosor squares, in Salvador.
DAAR (Decolonizing Architecture Art Residency), led by architects Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal, won the Golden Lion for Best Entrant. The Beit Sahour, Palestine-based firm presented a deconstructed building facade intended to investigate “the subversion of fascist colonial architecture and its modernist legacy”. The Prize Jury commended Petti and Hilal for their “long-standing commitment to deep political engagement with architectural and learning practices of decolonization in Palestine and Europe”.
The Biennial, entitled “Laboratory of the Future”, met with a issue before the awards ceremony, which took place on the opening day of the event, when the Italian government prevented three Ghanaian curators from entering the country to attend the event. The trio had been enlisted by Lokko, the first curator of African descent to lead the Biennale, and were on their way to work in Venice. The Italian authorities denied them visas on the grounds that they might try to stay in Italy illegally. In a press conference, Lokko decried the move as being motivated by the authority’s attempt to curry favor with Italy’s right-wing government.
