Johannesburg - It is that time again when every alternate year, South Africa unveils its group of curators to represent the country at the bi-annual International Architecture Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia or Venice Biennale of Architecture.
On Thursday, the Department of Sport, Arts and Culture and South Africa’s Ambassador to Italy, Nosipho Nausca-Jean Jezile, announced three curators for the South African Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition — La Biennale di Venezia.
The country announced Dr Sechaba Maape, Dr Emmanuel Nkambule and Stephen Steyn as the curatorial team, which will be supported by 2BLN, Spies Architects and Breinstorm Brand Architects in presenting the SA story at the Venice Biennale.
The team representing the South African pavilion in Venice will be using the revered Bokoni herdsmen's architectural low-relief rock carvings depicting building plans in a bid to highlight the unknown literature that these herdsmen were astute in architectural theoretical representation.
The country’s presentation, "The Laboratory of the Future", is the theme for this leg of the showcase, which will be held from May 20 to November 26 (pre opening May 18 and 19) in the Giardini, at the Arsenale, and at various sites around Venice.
Maape says the SA Pavilion was conceptualised with this theme in mind.
"It is explored through three cohesive exhibitions in the pavilion. The first being The Past is the Laboratory of the Future, an exploration of the Bokoni site and its various representations, including an augmented reality of a Bokoni homestead ruin. Here the Bokoni rock engraving is displayed alongside a woven installation in which visitors can have an immersive experience of a digital replica of the original site of the Bokoni," Maape explains.
According to Maape, the second exhibition, "The Council of Beings“, features his research-practice drawings and is inspired by Jean-Paul Sartre and Frantz Fanon’s critique of negritude as well as Leopold Senghor's ideas of African philosophy on the notion of vitality.
Political Animals, the third exhibition, features the results of an architectural design competition for South African students, where six student models or artefacts will be exhibited.
"We have a key opportunity with this pavilion to present previously unseen artefacts and thinking that is deeply entrenched in vital Indigenous Knowledge Systems in South Africa — and show how the past can truly be the laboratory of the future and help us to rethink critical issues that we face as a global society," says Maape.
Acting director-general of the Department of Sport, Arts, and Culture, Vusithemba Ndima, said that South Africa had been participating in this exhibition since 2011. This after department had obtained a permanent exhibition space in 2012 for 20 years in the Arsenale building in Venice.
The Star