The 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale as a Healing Experience: In Conversation with Curator Lesley Lokko

Written by Maria-Cristina Florian
Published on May 23, 2023

Onsite, in Venice at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, ArchDaily had the chance to meet with the curator Lesley Lokko to discuss the first impressions and the main themes of this edition of the Biennale, following up on the previous interview recorded before the opening of the event. Featuring 63 National Pavilions, 89 Participants, and 9 collateral events in the city, the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale represents one of the most important international events for the architectural profession. The conversation addressed Lesley Lokko’s approach to curating the theme and focus of the event, understanding Africa as “The Laboratory of the Future,” the desire to bring both authenticity and empathy to the architectural discourse, while creating a space for voices not typically heard in global exhibitions.

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The National Pavilions responded to the set theme in a variety of ways, reinterpreting and deconstructing the meaning behind ideas such as decolonization, decarbonization, resource management, or finding the hidden potential in vernacular forms of practice. According to the curator, one of the more interesting aspects of this edition was the formation of relationships across territories, not based on geography, but on common attitudes toward resources, politics, and ways of thinking about the world.

This perspective is heightened through the presentation of diverse narratives, bridging the gap between the profession of architecture and the broader field of the discipline. As expressed in the interview, Lesley Lokko understood the act of developing the Biennale as an open-ended process, one where various actors react to the same idea in a variety of ways. The same principle applies to the audience, who is not presented with specific lessons in a pedagogical manner, but with narratives that can open up new perspectives and understandings.

Lesley Lokko on the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale: "I Hope It Provokes the Audience to Think Differently and More Empathetically"

I think all cultural output is a form of narrative. Somebody once said that culture is the sum total of stories we tell ourselves about ourselves. So, there's a very deep need to say something, to impart something. In these questions of colony, identity, territory, and history, there is a sense amongst many black practitioners that we've never had the space to tell our own stories, and part of the act of recuperating what has been lost is the desire to speak. In some senses, the Biennale has been a healing experience, a kind of closing over of a wound, of a void. - Lesley Lokko

The discussion also touched on a new initiative, the Biennale Collage, a project by Lesley Lokko dedicated to the practice of young people in the artistic fields and in the activities of the organizational structure of the event. Following an international call, young talent will be given the opportunity to work side by side with the masters to develop creations to be presented as part of the Artistic Programs.

I don't expect this exhibition to teach anybody anything, I don't think it's a didactic exhibition. That's not to say that people won't learn something from it. But I don't want any of the participants to be the ones dictating what the lesson is. It should be read from it. What they have done is put out an authentic, genuine, sometimes vulnerable story. What happens to that story is somehow beyond their control. What I hope that the audience takes from it is a kind of openness where previously, there might have been a closeness, or an unwillingness to engage with the other, not on our terms, but on their terms. - Lesley Lokko