2023 British Pavilion offers diverse and dynamic installation at the 2023 Venice Biennale

At the newly opened Venice 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 of Lesley 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.

Dancing Before the Moon is at the British Pavilion, La Biennale Architettura 2023 is open in Venice until Sunday 26 November 2023, LaBiennale.org