Catalonia in Venice_ Following the Fish

The Institut Ramon Llull will be at the 18th International Venice Architecture Biennale with the collateral event Catalonia in Venice_ Following the Fish that will take place at the Docks Cantieri Cucchini in San Pietro di Castello from May 20 to November 26, 2023.

Interpreting the theme “The Laboratory of the Future” proposed this year by Lesley Lokko, the curators Daniel Cid, Eva Serrats, and Francesc Pla (Leve) wanted to participate in this challenge in order to draw attention to African realities in Europe. To develop Following the Fish, they joined forces with the Union of Barcelona Street Vendors (Top Manta), a social and political movement from Senegal, an example of the many other Africas that are being built in cities and rural areas across Europe from the diaspora.

The project revolves around urbanism, workspaces and housing from the perspective of the African diaspora in Catalonia. It wants to address the challenges of decolonization and decarbonization that impact the entire world. The result has been to generate a coming together of architecture and African migration with the aim of identifying alternative architectures to the hegemonic ones, urging us to think about the city in other ways. The collateral event Catalonia in Venice_ Following the Fish is divided into two parts: the Street Market, an installation that convenes the narrative of the African migrant diaspora in Catalonia, and the results of the laboratory The Reparation Atelier.

In the installation, the nave of the old Cantieri Cucchini becomes a continually transforming Street Market. Floating just over the ground will be the “mantas” or sheets that would normally hold the items for sale but will here instead display the contents of the trip made by the migrants. The narrative is accompanied by documents that expand on its content, including new contributions, references and comments through drawings, writings and images. The blankets have been made in the Top Manta textile workshop in Barcelona and each one focuses on a theme: Africa, the origin of civilization, plunder, diaspora, borders, aid networks, struggles, and projects; it finishes with the ‘manters’ new statements and the students’ architectural project that will be exhibited through videos at the end of the installation. The aesthetics are simple and humble, but the exhibition system is rich, complex and interdependent between the different blankets, which blur the path’s linearity and offer a network fabric of relationships between them.

The Reparation Atelier is aimed at students from international schools of architecture and design, to give shape to the ideas that emerged in multiple conversations with migrants: collective kitchens as an alternative to soup kitchens; welcome spaces as potential formats for the cohousing that so interests contemporary architecture, ways of co-living that could allow us to imagine new community-based residential models; and scattered, multi-purpose facilities based on the strategy of equipping neighborhoods using empty street-level commercial premises. The exhibition, which will showcase the results of this meeting of the migrant world and architecture students, is accompanied by the Quaderns Biennale publication, in collaboration with the Architects’ Association of Catalonia (COAC).

Also, from July 3 to July 7, a workshop will be held in Venice as an opportunity for conclusions and discussion.

Events
Press preview: May 18, 10am–2pm, with silent march at 10am.
Opening: May 18, 4–7pm, with speeches at 4:30pm.

Media inquiries
International PR 
Miriam Giordano—Labóh, T +34 606 602 230 / miriam [​at​] laboh.net
Gemma Pascual—Labóh, T +34 636 663 097 / press [​at​] laboh.net. 
Italian media relations
Greta Ruffino—The Link PR, T +39 339 1617953 / T g.ruffino [​at​] thelinkpr.it

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