Annex, an international research and design collective of architects, artists and urbanists, has been selected as the curators of the Irish Pavilion at the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale in 2020.

Announced by the Arts Council of Ireland, Annex - whose members include Sven Anderson, Alan Butler, David Capener, Donal Lally, Clare Lyster, and Fiona McDermott - will catalyse a public conversation about the relationship between architecture and data infrastructure by asking: what is architecture and who makes it in an age of data infrastructure. 

The Irish Pavilion, titled Entanglement, will investigate the societal, environmental and cultural changes brought about by network & communications technologies for local, national and international contexts, by reviewing Ireland's historical and emergent role as networking hub within global data infrastructure.

The pavilion is inspired by a remarkable event that took place in 1866, on Valentia Island in Co. Kerry. After five previous attempts, the first transatlantic telecommunications cable between Ireland and Canada was completed — an event that would become a catalyst for today's global communication networks. 

"We are excited to explore how design can meaningfully respond to the impact of data infrastructures and networked technologies, the ways by which they are imagined, the spaces they create, and the ways they connect to our habits and desires," said Annex. 

Annex’s exhibition is responsive to the theme for the Biennale for 2020 set by the curator Hashim Sarkis "How will we live together?" Under this theme, Sarkis calls on architects to imagine spaces in which we can generously live together as human beings and connect with one another and with other species across digital and real space. Annex also responds to the curator’s invitation to architects participating in the Biennale Architettura to engage with other professions to deliver their exhibitions.

One hundred and fifty years later Ireland, Europe’s largest data hosting cluster, continues to play a significant role in data infrastructure. In light of these events, the pavilion will foreground Ireland’s role in the global discourse on data infrastructure and its relation to contemporary architectural practice.

The Venice Architecture Biennale 2020 will open its doors from May 23rd to November 29th, 2020 at the Giardini and the Arsenale, as well as around other venues in Venice, Italy.

Top image courtesy of Annex

> via Arts Council of Ireland & Annex