Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[+]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[-]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[+]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[-]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[+]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[-]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[+]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[-]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[+]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[-]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[+]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[-]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[+]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[-]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[+]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[-]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[+]Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
[-]
Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
Photo : 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, The laboratory of the Future. Photo by Andrea Avezzù. Courtesy: La Biennale di Venezia
For the installation Aequare. The Future that never was (2023) specifically produced for the International Architecture Exhibition in Venice curated by Lesley Lokko, Sammy Baloji and Twenty Nine Studio present a copper reinterpretation of the “Pavillon Athmosphérique” imagined by architect Henri Lacoste for Brussels World’s Fair in 1935.
Originally designed to illustrate the cultural characteristics in an exotic vision of Congo, this luxurious building, which was intended to be built on the Heysel plateau in Brussels, never saw the light of day. By reproducing the structure of this building, Sammy Baloji gives a physical representation of this little-known colonial exhibition.
The film Aequare. The Future that never was (2023) sheds light on the world’s second largest rainforest around Yangambi, the artist interrogates the legacy of colonialism and the ecological destruction it has caused. By showing this specific territory around the equatorial forest and the Yangambi Science Center (INEAC), Sammy Baloji also reveals a dissonance with this environment which results from “the acclimatization, scientific control and territorial appropriation of Africa by Western colonists,” and suggests the vital nature of this region in reducing humanity’s carbon emissions.