May 10–November 23, 2025
The National Pavilion UAE announces the appointment of Azza Aboualam, Emirati architect and Assistant Professor at the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises at Zayed University, as curator of the UAE’s participation in the 19th International Architecture Biennale in 2025. Research by Aboualam will be exhibited in Venice and supplemented with an accompanying publication. In 2014, Aboualam was a Venice Intern at the National Pavilion UAE’s debut participation in the 14th International Architecture Exhibition—the Venice Biennale with the exhibition Lest We Forget: Structures of Memory in the UAE, curated by Dr. Michele Bambling.
Aboualam was selected through the National Pavilion UAE’s open call, the third of its kind. The open call invites new voices, including architects, designers, artists, historians, and researchers who have worked or studied in the UAE and elsewhere in the Middle East, North Africa, and South Asia (MENASA) regions, to highlight an untold story from the UAE that contributes to a global discourse on architectural practice.
Azza Aboualam: “I am honored to have been selected to curate the National Pavilion UAE. My 2014 internship inspired me to specialize in the overlap of architectural design and research by pursuing my master’s degree at Yale, and it is deeply fulfilling to return to Venice ten years later as a curator. I am grateful to the Commissioner, the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation, and to the National Pavilion UAE for giving me a platform to present UAE-based research on a topic that binds us all: food. Presenting this work on the global stage is a remarkable opportunity, especially contributing to the architectural discourse on a stage like the Biennale Architettura 2025.”
Laila Binbrek, Director, National Pavilion UAE: “The National Pavilion UAE is dedicated to telling untold stories of the UAE, and this year we are thrilled to feature the research of Emirati architect Azza Aboualam. I am delighted to see an alumna of the Venice Internship program returning as the curator of the National Pavilion ten years later. This speaks to our ongoing commitment to fostering the arts and culture ecosystem in the UAE, and the ways the National Pavilion UAE nurtures both the UAE’s cultural legacy and its future.”
The National Pavilion UAE will present its exhibition for the 19th International Architecture Exhibition from 10 May to 23 November 2025 (pre-opening on May 8 and 9). The Biennale Architettura 2025 will be curated by Italian architect, engineer, and educator Carlo Ratti with the title Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective.
The National Pavilion UAE is commissioned by the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation and supported by the UAE Ministry of Culture and has a permanent pavilion at the Venice Biennale’s Arsenale—Sale d’Armi.
About Azza Aboualam
Azza Aboualam is an Emirati architect and curator of the National Pavilion UAE for the 19th International Venice Architecture Biennale in 2025. She is an Assistant Professor at the College of Arts and Creative Enterprises at Zayed University, Dubai, UAE, and a Co-founder and Director of Research at Holesum Studio, an interdisciplinary architecture and design practice based in New York, USA, and Sharjah, UAE. She co-founded the studio in 2021 a few years after graduating from the Yale School of Architecture.
For press enquiries please contact Florian Vanicatte at florian [at] sendreceive.eu and press [at] nationalpavilionuae.org.
