photography, editorial
Austrian Pavilion
Partecipazione/
Beteiligung
AKT & Hermann Czech
Clelia produced and photographed the visual content for the pavilion, documenting the project in its different stages, including several phases of the project set-up, the opening of the pavilion to the public, and the institutional event to present the project. Furthermore, the photographs were included in the official publication of the Austrian Pavilion for the Venice Biennale, as part of the research developed by AKT & Hermann Czech (published by Soybot, Vienna, 2023).
About the project:
For the 18th International Architecture Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia, architecture collective AKT and the Viennese architect Hermann Czech have conceived a socially relevant temporary conversion of the Austrian Pavilion. The pavilion is situated at the northeastern border wall separating the Biennale premises from the city. This neighbourhood stands as a symbol of the socio-spatial development of Venice in recent decades: the Biennale as an exclave of international art tourism on the one hand and the surrounding sestiere of Castello as a district of Venice that is still mostly inhabited by local residents and, at the same time, a contested area of development, on the other.
For “Partecipazione / Beteiligung”, the symmetrical pavilion has been divided. The western half remains accessible from the Biennale’s side. The eastern half of the building, including the courtyard, should be freely accessible from the city via a newly built entrance. This part is to be assigned to the population of the adjacent residential neighbourhood and urban initiatives as a place of assembly. Engaging in a close exchange with those, the project has been conceived as the Biennale’s turning to the surrounding city: not in the form of further expansion like over the past decades, but in the form of giving up space and thus as a reversal of said spatial practice, which in recent years has also been criticised by the international press. The discourse on the Biennale’s role in the city, which has been conducted on a regional level for years, is to receive an internationally perceptible stage for the duration of the exhibition.
