Venice Structure Biennale opens this week. On this unique interview, curator Lesley Lokko explains why she positioned Africa on the coronary heart of the competition for the primary time.

Named Laboratory of the Future, this yr’s version will see numerous interpretations and displays of themes together with decolonisation and decarbonisation throughout town of Venice.

Many of those might be examined via the lens of Africa – the continent with the world’s youngest inhabitants – which Lokko has intentionally positioned on the coronary heart of the competition for the primary time.

“For this exhibition, two key phrases formed practitioners’ responses: decarbonisation and decolonisation,” Ghanaian-Scottish architect Lokko informed Dezeen.

“Africa’s distinctive context, which is each richly difficult and richly artistic, means it is a highly effective place from which to look at the problems that can dominate the following century – local weather change, societal change, demographic change, new types of governance, explosive urbanity.”

Lokko is the primary particular person of African descent to have curated the Venice Structure Biennale, which started in 1980. Cultural and racial id is a crucial theme in a lot of her work.

By placing Africa on the fore, she goals to spice up variety on the occasion, which is essentially the most vital in structure. This yr, greater than half the biennale’s 89 members hail from Africa or the African diaspora.

Till now, the Venice Structure Biennale has been constantly Eurocentric. In 2021, simply one-third of members have been from exterior of Europe and the USA, prompting requires higher variety.

“The ultimate entry to sources, it is difficult”

Among the many members on the important 2023 exhibition curated by Lokko are Pritzker Structure Prize winner and Burkinabé-German architect Diébédo Francis Kéré, South African architect Sumayya Vally, Ghanaian-British architect David Adjaye and Kenyan structure studio Cave_Bureau.

In the meantime, this yr’s British Pavilion curators embrace Jayden Ali, Meneesha Kellay, Joseph Henry and Sumitra Upham, who’re aiming to spotlight the necessity for extra inclusive structure.

Nonetheless, attaining this drastic enchancment in variety has been a problem, Lokko mentioned.

“Range additionally comes at a price,” she mirrored.

“The ultimate entry to sources, it is difficult to come back to the social gathering. An enormous quantity of effort, vitality and keenness went into securing help, which is essentially unseen and unrecognised,” she defined.

Particularly, this consists of gaining visas for her groups based mostly in Ghana’s capital Accra. Lokko mentioned in a snippet of an e-mail tweeted by Guardian structure critic Olly Wainwright that that they had been denied entry, with the Italian authorities accusing her of attempting to convey “non-essential younger males” into Europe.

“They’ve all been denied visas by the Italian authorities,” she mentioned within the snippet shared by Wainwright.

“The Biennale have finished every thing they probably can to help,” she continued.

“This yr’s themes have been very emotive and emotional”

In keeping with Lokko, her purpose for the 18th version of the Venice Structure Biennale is to replicate on the “unpredictability” of the turbulent period by which we live and share options for it.

“All futures are unsure. We do our greatest to anticipate the longer term,” Lokko mentioned.

“It is in that sense that I name this exhibition a ‘laboratory’ — not the place of scientific, exact experimentation, however the messy, passionate, argumentative house of deeply human enquiry,” continued Lokko.

“We aren’t aiming for a ChatGTP assertion that’s grammatically and politically tidy – quite the alternative. An exhibition that is stuffed with the issues and triumphs of any human endeavour.”

Talking of ChatGTP, a synthetic intelligence (AI) chatbot, Lokko added that she was curious but grateful to see that these applied sciences haven’t infiltrated this yr’s occasion – regardless of them making their presence recognized within the artistic industries right now.

“I believe this yr’s themes have been very emotive and emotional, not the sort of house by which AI simply thrives,” she mentioned. “Fortunately.”

“The vast majority of displays are digital and drawn”

Whereas enhancing the variety of the occasion, this yr’s version has additionally seen an elevated concentrate on sustainability.

In keeping with Venice Structure Biennale’s organisers, the occasion is aiming for carbon neutrality in alignment with the worldwide customary PAS2060, which is at present essentially the most extensively recognised benchmark for carbon neutrality.

To realize this, organisers have mentioned the occasion has labored to scale back emissions underneath its personal management and to offset the remaining emissions by buying licensed carbon credit.

For Lokko, this meant she curated her exhibition to be “as gentle a contact as potential”.

“The vast majority of displays are digital and drawn,” she defined.

“The place artefacts and fashions have been made, we labored tirelessly to scale back the impression by having issues made domestically, decreasing delivery prices, and chopping down drastically on the groups required in Venice throughout set up.”

Lokko, who can also be a tutorial and novelist, was revealed as curator of the Venice Structure Biennale for 2023 in December 2021. She is just the third lady to have taken up the function.

“Chatting with you from the world’s youngest continent, I wish to thank President Cicutto and your entire staff of La Biennale di Venezia for this daring, courageous alternative,” mentioned Lokko on the time.

Reflecting on her work on the occasion and its relevance right now, she mentioned believes that it stays to be a “very important” platform for the structure trade.

“At a time when a lot appears so precarious, I imagine it is vital to have such moments, areas, occasions, platforms,” Lokko concluded.

“Occasions, and their penalties, unfold in methods which can be usually solely predictable in hindsight,” she continued.

“However there are different kinds of occasions – and large-scale exhibitions like La Biennale di Venezia are good examples – the place, in full understanding of that unpredictability, curious individuals come collectively to share their concepts of what the longer term ought to be, what we must always hope for, and the right way to obtain these hopes.”

The portrait of Lokko is by Debra Hurford-Brown.

Dezeen is stay reporting from the Venice Structure Biennale, which takes place from 20 Might to 26 November 2023. See Dezeen Occasions Information for all the newest data you might want to know to attend the occasion, in addition to a listing of different structure and design occasions happening around the globe.