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18th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia
20 May - 26 November 2023
Curator: Faysal Tabbarah
Commissioner:
Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation
Supported by the UAE Ministry of Culture and Youth
Venue: Arsenale - Sale d'Armi
See the contact and venue
The National Pavilion UAE has appointed Faysal Tabbarah, Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Architecture at the American University of Sharjah, as curator for the UAE’s participation in the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in 2023. The selected research proposal by Tabbarah aims to explore the relationship between architecture and arid, or dry, landscapes in the UAE and reimagine them as spaces of abundance and productivity.
Tabbarah was selected following the National Pavilion UAE’s open call which invited designers, architects and thinkers based in the UAE and around the world, to develop proposals for the 2023 architecture exhibition. The applicants were tasked with exploring an intriguing aspect of the UAE’s architecture or built environment that contributes to the discourse around architectural practice locally, regionally, and internationally.
Research findings by Tabbarah, to be exhibited in Venice and supplemented with an accompanying publication, aim to respond to the 2023 Biennale Architettura 2023’s theme “The Laboratory of the Future”, which is being curated by Ghanaian-Scottish architect, academic, educator and best-selling novelist, Lesley Lokko.
“My approach will rely on integrating technology with land-based materials practices and knowledge found in arid landscapes in the UAE,” said curator Faysal Tabbarah, Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Architecture at the American University of Sharjah. “I am honored to have been selected as the curator for the National Pavilion UAE, and I’d like to thank the Commissioner, the Salama bint Hamdan Al Nahyan Foundation for this opportunity to expand on research that is becoming increasingly crucial to the architectural discourse globally. Aridity is a fast-approaching future condition for many regions, and through this exhibition, we’ll explore their potential as spaces of abundance and productivity.”
This exhibition will mark Tabbarah’s first participation as a curator of a national pavilion at the International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, and his second participation in the Architecture Biennale as a whole, as he has previously collaborated with the Kuwait Pavilion’s curators in 2021 for their presentation at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition, titled Space Wars.
© Photo: Augustine Paredes. Courtesy National Pavilion UAE
Born in Aleppo, Faysal Tabbarah is an Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Architecture at the College of Architecture, Art and Design at the American University of Sharjah (AUS), and co-founder of the experimental architecture and design studio, Architecture + Other Things (A+OT), which is based in Sharjah. Tabbarah is also the curator of the National Pavilion UAE for the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in 2023.
Tabbarah’s work, across teaching, research, and practice, explores the relationships between regional environmental and architectural imaginaries, or how people bring their natural surroundings to bear on how they understand and shape their world, to develop alternative building practices that are rooted in their surrounding material and cultural environments. To achieve this, Tabbarah’s work moves between computational tools, emergent technologies, materials research and historical archives.
Tabbarah has published and exhibited globally. In 2020, Tabbarah’s course at AUS, Architecture and Environmental Orientalism in the Arab World, received an Honorable Mention for the Course Development Prize organized by Columbia University’s Temple Hoyne Buell Center for the Study of American Architecture and the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture.
A+OT’s recently completed projects include Water in the Green, the winning entry for Sabeel Water Fountains competition at Expo 2020. He has previously held the position of Assistant Professor at the Aarhus School of Architecture in Denmark.
National Pavilion of the United Arab Emirates
Arsenale - Sale d'Armi
Venice Biennale
Location on map
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From press information.
© Photos: Courtesy of the National Pavilion UAE
© Image top: Photo by Faysal Tabbarah