We caught up with the recipient of the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement 2023 at the Biennale Architettura, Nigerian artist-designer Demas Nwoko
Nigerian artist-designerDemas Nwokohas won the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement 2023, an honour offered by the Biennale Architettura in every edition, and the award was presented to him in Venice at the event’s grand opening. The artist, architect and designer has excelled in a range of creative fields throughout his long career – he was born in in 1935 in Idumuje-Ugboko, a rural town in southern Nigeria. Now, his pioneering work has been acknowledged internationally as theVenice Architecture Biennale 2023celebrated Nwoko during the global event’s opening days. The distinction was announced upon the recommendation of curatorLesley Lokkoand following the approval of La Biennale’s board of directors chaired by Roberto Cicutto.
The 88-year-old Nwoko said that he ‘hoped his body of work helps build a foundation for the future’ for young architects today practising in Nigeria, and beyond. His explorations in the vernacular of his region, as well as insustainable architecture, are inspiring and indeed propose ways of working with local materials and climate in a way that feels timeless – and resonates with today’s architectural discourse around environmentally friendly building. He still works today, saying: ‘I still want to improve on what I did, not just the design but on the technology of building. Whatever I work on – art, design, architecture – comes from the same process of creativity. The aesthetics must also include function, and today that is often forgotten.’
Lokko said at the award’s announcement recently: ‘One of the central themes of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition is an approach to architecture as an “expanded” field of endeavours, encompassing both the material and immaterial worlds; a space in which ideas are as important as artefacts, particularly in the service of what is yet to come. With all of its emphasis on the future, however, it seems entirely fitting that the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement 2023 should be awarded to someone whose material works span the past 70 years, but whose immaterial legacy – approach, ideas, ethos – is still in the process of being evaluated, understood and celebrated.’
She continued: ‘Although relatively few, Nwoko’s buildings in Nigeria fulfil two critical roles. They are forerunners of the sustainable, resource-mindful, and culturally authentic forms of expression now sweeping across the African continent – and the globe – and they point towards the future, no mean achievement for someone whose work is still largely unknown, even at home. In 1977, writing about Nwoko’s first commission, to build the complex for the Dominican Institute in Ibadan, the architectural critic Noel Moffett wrote: ‘Here, under a tropical sun, architecture and sculpture combine in a way which only Gaudí perhaps, among architects, has been able to do so convincingly’.’
Ellie Stathaki is the Architecture Editor at Wallpaper*. She trained as an architect at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece and studied architectural history at the Bartlett in London. Now an established journalist, she has been a member of the Wallpaper* team since 2006, visiting buildings across the globe and interviewing leading architects such as Tadao Ando and Rem Koolhaas. Ellie has also taken part in judging panels, moderated events, curated shows and contributed in books, such as The Contemporary House (Thames & Hudson, 2018) and Glenn Sestig Architecture Diary (2020)
2023 British Pavilion offers diverse and dynamic installation at the 2023 Venice Biennale
The 2023 British Pavilion, ‘Dancing Before the Moon,’ contributes a triumphant blend of ritual, music, and cross-cultural pollination to the biennale’s ‘laboratory of the future’
At the newly openedVenice Architecture Biennale, the 2023 British Pavilion’s exhibition, ‘Dancing Before the Moon,’ stood out for the clarity and directness of its message.
Under the curatorship ofLesley Lokko, the 18th international architecture exhibition pushed hard against the prevailing orthodoxy of architecture culture, eschewing rosters of starchitects and glossily rendered megaprojects in favour of a more considered examination of the systems and structures, both physical and societal, that underpin the modern world.
Within this context, the pavilion’s exhibition, ‘Dancing Before the Moon,’ stood out for the clarity and directness of its message, exploring the way in which the overlooked rituals and practices of a multicultural island nation have become deeply embedded in the fabric of day-to-day life in the UK.
2023 British Pavilion: ‘Dancing Before The Moon’
Curated by Meneesha Kellay, Joseph Henry,Jayden Ali, and Sumitra Upham, the project was commissioned by a British Council team led by Sevra Davis. ‘I was quite unequivocal about challenging what we think about architecture,’ Davis recalls, explaining how many of the responses to the brief made this shift. The chosen curation team, however, went one step further, promising to engage with the physical fabric and form of the building.
‘Dancing Before the Moon’ comes from a quote from the American writer James Baldwin: ‘There is a reason, after all, that some people wish to colonize the moon, and others dance before it as an ancient friend.’ The curators assembled a group of practitioners to explore the way in which imported cultural practices adapt and evolve into integral components of British life, even as they sometimes occupied unfriendly and hostile spaces.
The neo-classical British Pavilion was completed in 1909 to designs by Edwin Alfred Rickards of Lanchester, Stewart and Rickards, a practice that designed several buildings in British colonies. The various artistic interventions are laden with multiple meanings; not only are they very literally occupying the corridors of power, but they are deliberately large and imposing to make an impact on the space.
‘Scale was really important from the beginning,’ says Jayden Ali. As well as his curatorial role, the London-based artist and architect is responsible for the vast giant steel pan-inspired sculpture, ‘Thunder and Şimşek,’ that hangs inside the entrance portico. Ali describes how these objects ‘challenge’ the building, while at the same time they are held up by a clever system of steel braces that in turn uses the columns for support; a metaphor of the support and intersection that his own Trinidadian and Cypriot heritage has with British culture.
The main entrance hall hosts the specially commissioned film, a travelogue around the UK, exploring the various rituals that have become part of British life, from dance to car culture, religion to carnival. The soundtrack permeates through the galleries, starting on the left with Shawanda Corbett’s ‘A Healing is Coming’, eight ceramic vessels that celebrate the variety, imperfections and beauty of the female form and rituals around healing. Symbolising eight imagined women embarking on different spiritual healing journeys, the vessels imbued with character and magic.
Mac Collins’s ‘Runout’ greets the visitor in the next room. This vast wooden assemblage is essentially a giant domino, perched atop an upholstered plinth that evokes the social clubs and pubs where this ever-popular Jamaican game is played. ‘Runout’ is one of many domino games, especially popular in the Midlands, near where the Nottingham-born designer grew up. The sculpture itself is character, part imp, part friendly alien, beamed down into this austere environment and impossible to ignore.
Although none of the installations encroach on one another, the tall doors and openings ensure they all have a visual connection. Sandra Poulson’s Sabão Azul e Água’, a striking blue assemblage of objects, is simultaneously diaphanous and weighty. Poulson has used fabric and textile waste to build her installation, fashioning a parade of stone balustrades, a cascade of lace, a concrete washing tank and a traditional Angolan costume. All are coated in blue soap, Sabão Azul, a symbol of cleanliness but also frequently used to smuggle embedded diamonds out of the country.
‘Bardo’, by Madhav Kidao takes the architect’s ‘Between Forests and Skies’ pavilion, installed at the V&A in 2021, melts its down and creates another form altogether. Inspired by his own heritage of Hindu and Buddhist philosophies, Kidao has transformed the molten aluminium into a pock-marked surface, scoured and shaped by the sand it was cast in. Bardos are transitional states that exist between birth, life and death in Buddhist philosophy, and this piece represents a moment of change, as opposed to the finality of traditional Western perceptions of death.
Yussef Agbo-Ola’s ‘Muluku: 6 Bone Temple’, dominates the final room in the sequence. Agbo-Ola, founder of Olaniyi Studio, divides his time between London and the Amazon rainforest in French Guiana. An inverted tent of stretched organic cotton, tethered to a frame and the building itself, this ‘temple’ of woven fabric evokes the nomadic animal skin structures of the Cherokee culture, and traditional Yoruba architecture.
Dancing Before the Moon represents ‘layers and layers of history,’ according to Ali, ‘it’s not about erasure, it’s about depth,’ he adds. ‘My work is about occupation. It’s a reflection of Britain – all of these people who live and work here. All of these rituals and customs are a part of British life.’ One of Lokko’s guiding principles for the Biennale is that ‘dominant voices [have] ignored huge swathes of humanity.’ ‘Dancing Before the Moon’ successfully occupies, transforms and engages with space, mirroring society’s ongoing transformation and its effect on art, design and architecture.
Jonathan Bell has written for Wallpaper* magazine since 1999, covering everything from architecture and transport design to books, tech and graphic design. He is now the magazine’s Transport and Technology Editor. Jonathan has written and edited 15 books, including Concept Car Design, 21st Century House, and The New Modern House. He is also the host of Wallpaper’s first podcast.
Brazil scoops 2023 Golden Lion award for national participation at the Venice Architecture Biennale
The Brazil Pavilion won the prestigious 2023 Golden Lion award for best national participation, as announced at the Venice Architecture Biennale in Italy this weekend – along with more honours for individual and country-led installations
The Brazilian Pavilion has been announced as the 2023 Golden Lion winner for national participation at theVenice Architecture Biennale, which launched to the public this weekend. The South American country’s win came alongside several more honours revealed for more national contributions as well as individual installations in curatorLesley Lokko‘s main show, and of course theGolder Lion for Lifetime Achievement 2023which went to Nigerian artist, designer and architectDemas Nwoko.
2023 Golden Lion: Brazilian Pavilion
Co-curators of the Brazilian Pavilion Gabriela de Matos and Paulo Tavares look at notions of decolonisation, national identity, diaspora, indigenous knowledge systems, as well as around Brasília and modernism, while connecting to Lokko’s main theme through the vector of the African diaspora. Titled ‘Terra’, the exhibit draws on the past to compose ‘possible futures, focusing on the role of land in shaping our understanding of heritage and identity.’
The pavilion features projects born of Indigenous and Afro-Brazilian knowledge about land and territory, as well as bespoke commissions such as an audio-visual piece by Brazilian filmmaker Juliana Vicente, archival photographs complied by historian Ana Flávia Magalhães Pinto, the ethno-historical map of Brazil by Curt Nimuendajú, and the Brasília Quilombola map.
The biennale’s international jury panel this year was composed of Ippolito Pestellini Laparelli (president, Italy); Nora Akawi (Palestine); Thelma Golden (US); Tau Tavengwa (Zimbabwe); and Izabela Wieczorek (Poland). More awards included a special mention for the British Pavilion, titled ‘Dancing Before The Moon’; the Golden Lion for the best participant in the 18th Exhibition ‘The Laboratory of the Future’, which went to DAAR’s Alessandro Petti and Sandi Hilal; the Silver Lion for a promising young participant in the 18th Exhibition ‘The Laboratory of the Future’ to Olalekan Jeyifous; and three further special mentions to Twenty Nine Studio / Sammy Baloji, Wolff Architects, and Thandi Loewenson.