Britain at the Venice Biennale Architettura 2023

How the UK is making an exhibition of itself at one of the world’s greatest events

The Venice Biennale, or if you really want to sound smooth, La Biennale di Venezia, is the Granddaddy of all exhibitions. It’s been held annually since 1895, alternating between two themes – last year it featured art, and 2023 is seeing the return of architecture to La Serenissima.

Great Britain has made a show-stopping appearance so let’s delve in.

From May 20th all the way through to November 26th the gorgeous floating city is hosting 63 national pavilions for the 18th international Biennale Architettura.

The title of this year’s offering is The Laboratory of the Future, and has been painstakingly curated by the Ghanaian-Scottish architect Lesley Lokko.

“For this exhibition, two keywords shaped practitioners’ responses: decarbonisation and decolonisation,” Lokko told Dezeen.

The UK opened the doors of the British Pavilion building to reveal what curators Jayden Ali, Joseph Henry, Meneesha Kellay and Sumitra Upham have been planning for the past year.

The result is breathtaking.

The British Pavilion lies at the heart of the Giardini, which provides a beautiful backdrop to Dancing Before the Moon, a £200,000 installation featuring six new works of art.

Dancing Before the Moon aims to inspire debate that will challenge and influence the future of British architecture. Through its installations of new artwork, a film and soundscape, it promotes the idea that everyday rituals, from growing food and cooking to playing games and dancing, take place in different spaces worldwide. This challenges architecture and the built environment to look at new ways of creating these spaces.

The British Council explained the primary focus of the curatorial team is to “guide you through a celebratory journey of new work by six UK-based artists and architects. Through film and objects, these artists…highlight the central role that rituals play in reflecting the traditions and community values of people living in the UK”.

The art installations are on an architectural scale and are displayed alongside a film and soundtrack.

The first piece that visitors come across is an external installation by Jayden Ali, Thunder and Şimşek, “inspired by hybridised cultures and rituals that have grown from occupation in Trinidad and Cyprus”.

The centrepiece and namesake of the British offering is a film titled Dancing Before the Moon, which studies rituals performed by the multicultural communities of the UK. The film features new footage taken in different places and spaces, including a pub in Nottingham and a Streatham hairdresser’s salon, as well as snippets of footage from the BFI’s archive.

The other artists’ work on display are Sandra Poulson’s four-object installation called Sãbao Azul e Água, and Mac Collins’ piece, Runout, which is a quirky and futuristic domino-style object created from ebonised and polished ash timber.

Next up, Shwanda Corbett created a series of ceramic vessels called A Healing is Coming, while Madhav Kidao’s Bardo is influenced by the rituals surrounding death

Finally, Yussef Agbo-Ola’s Muluku: 6 Bone Temple is an architectural entity and sensory environment for worshipping non-human life and extinct species.

The British Council has produced an extremely detailed and downloadable guide to the UK’s exhibit here, just in case you can’t make it.

Do you have what it takes to contribute to international exhibitions and architectural projects like this?

Then we’d love to talk to you about some of the amazing opportunities we have on our books. Our fabulous mustard XP and mustard BE teams are staring at their phones just waiting for your call, so get your dialing finger at the ready. 0117 929 6060 is the number you’re looking for.