The Korean Pavilion has shared it theme and curators for its exhibition at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice Architecture Biennale. 

Themed as 2086: Together How?, the Korean Pavilion, curated by Artistic Directors Soik Jung and Kyong Park, brings together together architects, community leaders and artists to interrogate how we can work together to confront current and future environmental global crises by 2086, when the global population is expected to peak.

The Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 will take place from Saturday 20 May to Sunday 26 November, 2023 at the Arsenale and Giardini venues in Italy. 

The theme of the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale is The Laboratory of the Future curated by Lesley Lokko.

Banwol Archipelago, NHDM Architects, 2023. Digital on paper, courtesy of N H D M Architects. The Korean Pavilion presents 2086: Together How? at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 20 May to 26 November 2023

The exhibition is enriched with a participatory video game, and a series of multidisciplinary installations that encompass photographs, drawings, models, video and architectural installations.

The Korean Pavilion invites audiences to imagine an ecocultural revolution through a critical reassessment of our capitalist, globalist, and colonial history.

Measure Island, NHDM Architects, 2023. C. NHDM. The Korean Pavilion presents 2086: Together How? at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 20 May to 26 November 2023

The exhibition, 2086: Together How?, focuses on three small communities engaged in active regeneration projects in South Korea, each varying in population, history and characteristics: inside the global city of Incheon; the colonial historic centre in the mid-size city of Gunsan; and in the rural areas largely resided by migrant workers in the Gyeonggi Province. 

According to curators, "these locations constitute a cross section of urbanization, modernization, and westernization in South Korea." 

SoA, Intervention for Nature, 2023. Courtsey SoA. The Korean Pavilion presents 2086: Together How? at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 20 May to 26 November 2023

A team of architects and community leaders have worked with local communities and carried out collaborative research activities, framed by a set of dialectics that have been determinant factors in our ecocultural evolution; for example, how to balance individualism and communalism in future society.

"Each community is a case study which utilizes the community leader’s deep knowledge of the place and the architect's spatial analysis to evaluate its current state, and propose site- specific future scenarios leading up to 2086," said Soik Jung, the Artistic Director of the exhibition. 

Soik Jung and Kyong Park. Photo by Nam Yun Jung. The Korean Pavilion presents 2086: Together How? at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 20 May to 26 November 2023

"For instance, in the case of Gunsan, practitioners have explored how to work with abandoned homes and buildings to return the old city’s urban landscape to a more natural state." 

"Moreover, each project is motivated by central concerns of how to cope with decaying urban centers and rural villages due to centuries of uneven capitalist development thinking." 

"As such, these projects are about how the past can be connected with the future, and how localism can reshape globalism," Jung added.

The Korean Pavilion, 2013. Image courtesy Arts Council Korea. The Korean Pavilion presents 2086: Together How? at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 20 May to 26 November 2023

The exhibition also features a participatory video game, a central component of the exhibition, which will invite audiences to make decisions in current and future ecocultural scenarios. 

"Rather than focusing on climatic data, the Korean Pavilion encourages visitors to understand how global environmental issues are rooted in humanity’s past choices," said the Korean Pavilion. 

Wongkok, NHDM Architects, 2023. C. NHDM A. The Korean Pavilion presents 2086: Together How? at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 20 May to 26 November 2023

Kyong Park added that "2086: Together How? loops back to our Faustian ideology of progress and how we have sought unlimited material pleasure through industrialization, colonization, and globalization." 

"The exhibition asserts that not only will the environmental crisis force us to change, but it will be our only chance to make a better ecocultural paradigm for the future."

Yoon&Chae, DIT Ang Dong Ma Cha Parade, 2022. C. SB. The Korean Pavilion presents 2086: Together How? at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 20 May to 26 November 2023

Arts Council Korea (ARKO), the Commissioner of the Korean Pavilion that commissioned the foundation of the pavilion itself, is a governmental agency under the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, dedicated to supporting and promoting Korean arts and culture.

WoonGi Min,  Baedari Announcement Board of Historic Culture, 2016. The Korean Pavilion presents 2086: Together How? at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 20 May to 26 November 2023

Other pavilions also announced their themes and details for the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, such as Gabriela De Matos and Paulo Tavares were announced as the curators of the Brazilian Pavilion, the Danish Pavilion will explore Coastal Imaginaries curated by Josephine Michau.

Moreover, Turkey Pavilion, curated by SO? co-founders Sevince Bayrak and Oral Göktaş, will investigate Ghost Stories: Carrier Bag Theory of Architecture, the U.S. Pavilion will explore the world’s complex relationship to plastic and the British Pavilion will explore Dancing Before The Moon, curated by Joseph Henry, Meneesha Kellay, Sumitra Upham, the Georgian Pavilion will explore January, February, March, focusing on the relationship between the flow of time and energy, the Swiss Pavilion will present Neighbours at this year's exhibition.

Top image: N H D M Architects, Take the #4 Line, 2023. Digital print on paper. Courtesy of N H D M Architects. The Korean Pavilion presents 2086: Together How? at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, 20 May to 26 November 2023.

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