A Fragile Correspondence - Scotland + Venice at La Biennale di Venezia 2023
A Fragile Correspondence - Scotland + Venice at La Biennale di Venezia 2023
Curated by the Architecture Fringe, -ism magazine, /other
Commissioned by Scotland + Venice
Docks Cantieri Cucchini, Venice, Italy
19 May - 26 Nov 2023
A Fragile Correspondence is Scotland’s contribution to the Venice Biennale Architettura 2023 – the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, The Laboratory of the Future curated by Prof. Lesley Lokko.
Commissioned by the Scotland + Venice partnership and curated by the Architecture Fringe, -ism, and /other, the exhibition will be on public show from 19 May – 26 November 2023 at Docks Cantieri Cucchini, S. Pietro di Castello, 40, 30122 in Venice.
Curators
Neil McGuire, Andy Summers (Architecture Fringe)
Alissar Riachi, Aoife Nolan, Amy McEwan, Kristina Enberg (-ism magazine)
Mia Pinder-Hussein, Carl C.Z. Jonsson, Alyesha Choudhury (/other)
Participants
Dr. Amanda Thomson, Raghnaid Sandilands, Hamshya Rajkumar, Dr. Mairi McFadyen, Frank McElhinney, Aaron McCarthy, Prof. Donna Heddle, Dele Adeyemo
Collaborators
Simon Forsythe (Lateral North), Ann Louise Kieran (North Lanarkshire Council)
The project explores how our landscapes are constantly transmitting information if we choose to see and listen. By re-establishing our dialogue with the land, how can we value exchange over extraction and equality over dominance? How can we create a more reciprocal connection with the land?
Highlighting cultures and languages that have a close affinity with the landscapes of Scotland, A Fragile Correspondence investigates alternative perspectives and new approaches to the challenges of the worldwide climate emergency.
From the forests around Loch Ness, the seashore of the Orkney archipelago and the industrialised remnants of the Ravenscraig steelworks, the project takes us on a journey through three Scottish landscapes; the Highlands, Islands and Lowlands.
Writers, artists and architects, in correspondence with these landscapes, are exploring issues distinctly rooted in place, but with global relevance to the cultural, ecological and climatic issues that we face.
[Highland] The exhibition opens within the forests of Loch Ness, exploring alternative forms of land ownership beyond capital property through the communities of Abriachan and Strathnairn. The Highlands, being the genesis of the romanticism of the Scottish landscape, poses the question of how internationalised capital and commercial extraction can affect the biodiversity, cultural identity, and environmental sustainability of the land in its local context.
[Island] The exhibit continues onto Orkney, where, for centuries, Orcadians have continuously negotiated with the local forces of nature, such as the powerful sea, and nurtured a deep understanding of their environment and an ability to adapt and persevere. The climate breakdown, having intensified the force and frequency of these negotiations between humans and nature, pushes us to look at how Orcadians have created a self-reliant transition through working with nature rather than against it, through their way of living and built environment.
[Lowland] The third location, the former Ravenscraig Steelworks, one of Europe's largest steelwork plants, demolished only 30 years after its opening, offers a multi-layered view of land, where the flora and fauna have experienced phases of both anthropocentric and ecological growth. Here, the project evaluates the resurgence of the natural over the industrial landscape. The land hides stories of labour, community economy, regeneration, and dereliction.
Lastly, a Lexicon forms a key part of the exhibition, gathering words and ideas from our research and presenting them as a collection – an alternative glossary of terms, concepts and ideas for Architecture.
Image: Exhibition artwork
Curators of A Fragile Correspondence (Image: Matthew Arthur Williams)
A Fragile Correspondence, Ravenscraig section of the exhibition. Image: Daniele Sambo
A Fragile Correspondence, Loch Ness section of the exhibition. Image: Robb Mcrae
A Fragile Correspondence, Loch Ness section of the exhibition. Image: Robb Mcrae
‘Gaa’ and ‘Standing Words’, by Aaron McCarthy, Orkney section of the exhibition. Image: artist
A Fragile Correspondence, ‘Extraction’ by Frank McElhinney and Hamshya Rajkumar, Ravenscraig section of the exhibition. Image: Daniele Sambo
