The project “Ball Theater” has been chosen to represent the French Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. As a response to the world of thought and experiment proposed by Lesley Lokko’s theme of “The Laboratory of the Future”, the French team aims to create a place of celebration and collective experiment by transforming the pavilion into a performance space. The curatorial team is composed of Muoto, an architectural practice founded in Paris by Gilles Delalex and Yves Moreau, in partnership with Georgi Stanishev and Clémence La Sagna for the scenography, associate curator Jos Auzende, and Anna Tardivel for the programming. The pavilion will be open from May 20th until November 26, 2023.
The ”Ball Theater” exhibition invites visitors to enjoy a sensory experience and theater architecture by creating a scenography of sight and sound. The spherical installation is designed to become a place of immersion and experimentation. Each month, researchers, students, artists, and thinkers will inhabit the space for one week, turning the Pavilion into a venue for celebration and discussion. The project proposes a globe-shaped theater covered with a layer of silvered aluminum. The purpose of this scenography is to accommodate a stage where performers and the audience can interact. The intervention is extended to the adjoining rooms, where recycled and recovered objects reflect a feeling of hope and nostalgia, the desire to reconstruct a future still anchored in the past.
At specific times during the Biennale, the Ball Theater will be transformed into an actual ballroom, hosting performative events, a nod to the history of Ball Culture that developed in Harlem in New York City in the 1920s and 1930s. These performances and workshops aim to open the debate on current questions such as the fragility of our planet, the colonial heritage, and the representation of identity, norms, and gender. Echoes of the Pavilion will also be created worldwide to widen its impact beyond Venice. The project was chosen through a competition organized by the Institut français on behalf of the Ministry of Culture and the Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs.
Aligned with the goals of the Paris Agreement, the French Pavilion promotes light and modular architecture, reversible assemblages, local production, and the economical use of materials. For this Biennale, the Institut français has employed a low-carbon measurement tool to reduce the impact of its projects. The Ball Teater, made of wood and steel, is created to be reusable and to travel easily, as the structure can be easily assembled and disassembled. All objects in the theatre and the adjoining rooms will be given a second life after the exhibition’s closing. The installation also employs local materials and will be produced by craftsmen from the Venice region to reduce material millage.
Several other countries have also announced their curators and contributions for the 18th edition of the Venice Architecture Biennale. Switzerland announced their intention to explore the territorial relationship between them and their neighbor in the Giardini: Venezuela. The Nordic Countries Pavilion, curated by Joar Nango, brings a fragment of the indigenous Sámi culture to Venice; while Italian curators are organizing a series of smaller exhibitions to present the particularities of the Italian context. Besides the national pavilions, the Venice Architecture Biennale also includes the international exhibition, which is curated by the Biennale’s curator, Lesley Lokko, along with several other collateral events.
