Cities

Jabiru (AU), Auroville (IND) - Christiania (DK) - Vancouver Island (BC) - Seoul (KOR) - Pyongyang (KP) - Yazd (IR) - Arcosanti (USA) - Riesi (ITA) - Taipei - Marsiglia (FR) - Roma (ITA) - Parigi (FR) - Istanbul (TR) - Zurigo-Thun (CH) - London (UK) - Porto (PT) - Torino (ITA) - Cairo (EG) - Pianosa (IT)

Jabiru

For the third edition of Countless Cities, the Australian Pavilion will present a display focusing on the town of Jabiru, as seen through the eyes and camera of Corben Mudjandi, Mirarr Traditional Owner and 22 year old emerging artist. The pavilion responds to the Biennial themes of: Nature in Cities, by addressing the importance and need of valuing Indigenous people’s views, traditional knowledges and connection to Country, and confronting the environmental disasters determined by colonisation, illegitimate appropriation of land and the impact of modern industries such as mining; and Youth Power, by promoting the perspective of a young inhabitant of Jabiru who offers a glimpse into the town, and his Country, proposed as a place of beauty, intensity and kinship.

Curator agency + Marrawuddi Arts and Culture

Jabiru was established in 1978 on the lands traditionally owned by the Bininj people, 250 km east of Darwin. The town was built to accommodate the workers of the Ranger Uranium Mine. Jabiru has steadily grown since then due to the increasing publicity for Kakadu National Park, where it is located, operating as a large tourist centre during the dry season months. The Mirarr traditional owners were recognised land rights only in 2021, after a long fight against uranium mining started in the 1970s.

“Taking photos of family with a film camera is something that I can’t describe, it kind of tells you about how important it is to have family that support you and are also able to criticise you throughout your life, which shapes the person you are today. It makes me thankful for every bit of time spent with family around me.”
“My passion is hunting and enjoying some nature time. I really like hunting buffalo and pig, they’re a pest in Kakadu, they destroy the environment, especially on flood plains. Sometimes dealing with feral animals and feeding family is like killing two birds with one stone; They are good food! I go out with the boys whenever we have free time.”

Utopias: Auroville, Christiania, Vancouver Island ...

The American artist Steve Lambert states on this issue that they offer inspiration for new reflections: utopia is not simply a destination. It is a direction. These words underline the idea of a future, of a future without the same mistakes committed in the past, a new point of view in the compass that orients our journey. Without utopias we would all travel without a direction trying to take a guess, in the hope of moving forward. The Desire for “Elsewhere” starts from here.

Curator Carlo Bevilacqua

In 1516 Sir Thomas More coined the term “Utopia” to describe an idealistic society in which common principles are shared, people live by farming simply for survival and not for commerce and private properties and money are abolished.

But what is Utopia today? There are diverse realities around the world, which have translated abstract intellectual thoughts into experience, based on human qualities, but have they really given life to possible alternative ways of existence?

The “utopias” realized nowadays derive from experiments born as vanguard phenomena that often evolve in directions different from the original concept or from abandoned projects that were dropped when the propulsive drive behind them ended. They are less and less relegated to the niche of alternative movements, and they often tackle new challenges with different conditions and urgent needs. A new desire for “elsewhere” necessarily leads to an innovative re-definition of the nature and of the role of utopia.

Seoul / Pyongyang Pavilion

Until the outbreak of the Second World War, Korea was a single country, with a long past of domination but with solid cultural roots. A bloody war divided it and changed its fate by creating two nations that march to different tunes but which, curiously, maintain some similar peculiarities.

Curator Filippo Venturi

Despite their different fates, Seoul and Pyongyang, the capital cities, are both grappling with the same frantic search, in an attempt to show their best to the world, both from a social and technological point of view, exerting enormous pressure on young people, to whom will be entrusted the fundamental task of leading the country, in the South, towards modernity and economic development, in the North, towards political redemption that seeks reunification and independence.

The two countries seem like parallel realities on the same “Möbius strip,” famously represented by Escher with ants that seem to walk on opposite sides of the strip but which, in reality, are on the same one.

Yazd – Chabahar

From the desert to the sea

From Yazd to Chabahar, from the heart of the Iranian desert to the waters of the Indian Ocean, from the shapes of tradition to those of renewal. A journey between two worlds to capture the faces and gestures of the new generations of Iranians even before the events of 2022 and 2023 made their urgent ideas of change known to the whole world.Curator Antonio Oleari

“In September 2019 my son Giulio turned 18. He decided to study Sustainable Architecture and for this reason, for his birthday, I gave him a trip to Arcosanti, Arizona, where in 1970 Paolo Soleri, the great Italian architect and visionary, founded his city-utopia in the middle of the desert " . Arcosanti Trip by Vittorio Bongiorno is the story of one of the most utopian city building experiences but it is also a wonderful journey on the road and a precious lesson for anyone with children”.

Arcosanti

How do you live in a utopia? How is it possible to live in Arcosanti, in the middle of the desert? Why was only 5% of Arcosanti built? Why do students and architects from all over the world visit Arcosanti but only someone stays there? Is Arcosanti a failure or a dream?

Curator Vittorio Bongiorno

RIESIlience

If a man has a vision he may perhaps not change all things but it can strongly affect reality so that things change. In 1961 Tullio Vinay - theologian, Waldensian pastor, finally senator of the Republic - after having founded the Agape center in Prali in the Piedmontese mountains, moved to Sicily in Riesi, one of the most problematic areas in the south, a place of misery and mafia, where he founded the Christian Service.

Curator Salvo Cuccia and Gustavo Alàbiso

The Christian Service consisted of a kindergarten and an elementary school, a Family Counseling Center and an agricultural consultancy center, still in operation today. Her intent was to realize a project of social and educational commitment, promotion for women and work for young people (school of mechanics) and agricultural development.

Marseille

A welcoming city is a city accessible to all, where we meet, where we talk to each other and where we integrate together a living community. Marseille by its radicalism, its rebellious character, its Mediterranean identity, has managed to preserve spaces of freedom. These places are moments of grace, the threshold of a door, a kitchen open to the street, an abandoned sea view… they produce surprise and emotion, they feed the city with unexpected moments. They participate in making Marseille a city rich in cultures and identities, where these magical moments because they are unexpected, give our city its particularity. They create a multitude of archipelagos, an ecosystem of places like so many places to meet, meditate, dream, play, dance and share a moment of break or celebration.

Curators Kristell Filotico and Rémy Marciano

Land of welcome without conditions, it is no less hostile. Marginals, undocumented people, souls in search of meaning, etc., come and create the identity of the city on a daily basis. They do not wait for society to leave them a place, they seize it, and shout it. In the absence of money, there remains love and time. A permanent hospitality in a fisherman’s hut by the sea or at the core of Belsunce, calms these beings and their rage to live. Lulled by the sound of La Fin de Leur Monde, experience Marseille through a sound immersion in a plural city rich in accents covered with sea spray. A total work that awakens the senses and plunges into the fervor of the city, between hostility and optimism. Because tomorrow will be fine.

Rome Pavilion

The Pavilion aims to tell a new face of Italy to account for the impact of new generations with a migratory background. The Pavilion is also supported by the Vitamin G call of the Lazio Region and has received the patronage of the Ministry of Labor and Social Policies

Curator Arianna Massimi

Explore the chaos and uncertainty, the Cosmogony of Olives for the Paris Pavilion that tells the story of mythological character: Cedric Casanova, as a young nomad tightrope walker of the Cirque du Soleil, today thinker-farmer-restaurateur of a new logic of production and marketing that has its own foundation in trust and friendship. In his boutique, a micro restaurant for two, rue Sainte Marthe in Paris, also finds inspiration great international chefs such as Pierre Hermé or Alain Ducasse.

Paris Pavilion

Curators Collectif Ferrus

Through the Istanbul Pavilion, the show aims to convey to the audience the notion of the “Istanbulite” * (being from Istanbul). In search of its major constituting values, the pavilion is a humble attempt to unfold the countless layers of history and culture which made up the “apple” of the Orient, Istanbul.

In Switzerland, before the construction of a new building or of the extension or modification of an existing one, each new building volume is staked, ie marked by known temporary metal placeholders such as building profiles, or Baugespann. Made of tubular metal, sometimes in wood, these must signal the angles, the height of the facades, the inclination of the roof e are meant to show the extent to which the new construction will affect the surrounding environment. The stakeout remains standing until the completion of the building permit process. The ephemeral volume ed resulting imagery allows every citizen to take note of the change in the urban fabric but also of oppose it, by means of an appeal

Zurich/Thun Pavillion

Opera Aperta celebrates the identifying and evocative potential del Baugespann and erects it, metaphorically and physically, a symbol of Swiss Baukultur (building culture).

Curators Frank Dittmann, Beatrice Fontana, Charles Job, Antonio Scarponi

LONDON multipleCITY: a city of multiplicities

Taking inspiration from the overall concept, we would like to explore and share this broader and more radical concept of Pleasure with the visitors of our London Pavilion. Our interpretation of this Biennale’s topic is also led by our overall approach and ethos: Pleasure can be not just centred on an individual experience and material desires but can be derived from a connection that can be made with a wider community of like-minded people and a joint sense of purpose towards achieving a common good. As part of our work approach at Architecture for Humanity, we seek to tap into the space of ‘multiplicity’ described above - we provide a framework for ideas to address needs or objectives of diverse communities, and through a process of collaboration and dialogue, derive inspiration and input from the community’s multiplicities to give, through design, form and life to their concept, so that in the end the outcome is very much in the ownership of the community itself.

Curator Architecture for Humanity UK

Porto Pleasant City

The etymology of the word ‘pleasure’ comes from the Latin placēre, defined by the satisfaction of physical, psychological, moral or spiritual desires or needs. If we consider the root plac- (which we also find in the word plac-are, that is, to make flat, to make smooth, in figuratively easy sense), we understand that the word pleasure has to do with the idea of a smoothed situation, so to speak, facilitated. If we also think about the origin of the word ‘place’, it comes from the Old Greek word plateîa. Ultimately both Place, Plaza and Pleasure came from the same root.A plaza is a place for humanity and a place to please their needs. It’s the ultimate public space. A well-designed public space is what makes a city a “Pleasant City”. The public spaces in the city of Porto are definitely one of the most successful inEurope and probably in the world. Porto is the champion city of the “well-design” public space. This is the result of decades of an amazing and fortunate synergy between the Municipality and the very well skilled architects educated in a renewed Architectural School lead by two Pritzer Price Architects: Alvaro Siza and Eduardo Souto de Moura. There has been a certain cross of events that has helped this fortunate synergy happening. For Farm’s Porto Pavilion, Moncada Rangel will explore what makes a city a “Pleasant Space” and ultimately, taking Porto as an example, what every city in the world needs to be a city that gives “Pleasure” to its inhabitants.

Curator Moncada Rangel

How will urban spaces evolve to become more welcoming for girls and boys? Streets, buildings, parks and squares, which functions will they host and how they will adapt to the needs of the little ones?

Turin Pavillon

The Turin Pavillon will show an interactive matrix, conceived by Print Club Torino in collaboration with local non-profit organizations and design students, that will allow visitors to shape through a recombinatory logic the city they dream for the future, inviting them to focus on the needs of a specific target: the children.

The outcome will be a collective work that merges the voices from the world on the future of “child-friendly” cities.

Innovation and creativity are the tools to improve people's daily lives: Print Club Torino uses visual design to promote a more sustainable use of shared spaces, to raise awareness, to acquire social responsibility and to stimulate reflections on the systems we are part of. The exhibited matrix represents the systemic methodology used by Print Club Torino to adopt flexible formulas for re-functionalization of urban spaces:

What is Tato?

TATO is an itinerant project.

It’s an exhibition of Taiwanese illustrators that travels on

wheels and stops at the most prestigious Italian events of

the sector.

You Know That You Are Human

The exhibition brings together works of 23 Ukrainian photographers: Valentyn Bo, Aleksander Chekmenev, Maryna Frolova, Oleksander Glyadyelov, Paraska Plytka Horytsvit, Borys Gradov, Alena Grom, Viktor and Serhiy Kochetov, Yulia Krivich, Sasha Kurmaz, Viktor Marushchenko, Serhiy Melnitchenko, Boris Mikhailov with Mykola Ridnyi, Valeriy Miloserdov, Iryna Pap, Evgeniy Pavlov, Roman Pyatkovka, Natasha Shulte, Synchrodogs, Viktoriia Temnova, Mykola Trokh.

Organized by:
IZOLYATSIA, Ukrainian Institute

Curated by:
Kateryna Filyuk

Global Chinese New Year Photography Competition 2023

The 2023 Global Chinese New Year Photography Competition (GCPC) welcomes diverse and innovative photos from photographers and visual artists around the world about the beauty of Chinese New Year and Chinese Culture. Subjects include Chinese Culture, China Natural Scenery, and Chinese Elements Abroad.

Organizer

North America Photography Association in United Nations (napa)

In collaboration

with The World Cultural Art Organization (unwcao) e Farm Cultural Park

Cairo

There will also be Mosa Keshk (Mosa One), a young Italian-Egyptian urban painter-artist, guest of the third edition of Countless Cities, the Biennial of the Cities of the World to tell about his city, Cairo.
Mosa One is one of the two winners of the Farm Prize for Arte Laguna Prize.
His Pavilion will be hosted in Mazzarino within Plurals.

Family Tree

A story by Toma Gerzha

My family members have always chosen to live by the principle of the treaded path. Everyone tried to get a higher education, start a household, not to stand out and lead an exemplary Soviet way of life. I was born after the collapse of the Soviet Union, in the early 00s. I only saw most of my relatives when I was a child. They died before I could get to know them, talk to them, love them. Years later I started meeting them separately via our family photo archive. The memories started to rewild in my head.

This is the way I met my grandparents and their family story. My grandparents were always cold people, as Soviet scientists should be, even their daughter (my mother) didn’t know them completely. I knew my grandfather for a strict and morose man, but what I saw on the pictures was a merry fellow, life of the party.

I was going from one photo to another, from a letter to a letter. There were dates, names, wishes, thoughts written on the back on many photographs.

Sometimes I failed to read the handwriting in order to understand who was on the picture. Then suddenly I succeeded and it opened a way further in the deep; and so it went along all the branches of the family tree.

As a result, it occurred to me that family is formed not only of the people you spend your childhood with, but also owing to memory that can generate ties across the time, hence break boundaries. For two families living in different places at different times cannot have anything in common, but they might have a common future.

By combining leaves from trees and archive family photosI created my physical family tree using the chlorophyll printing method.

ISOLATI: chronicles from an open prison - Pianosa

A prison is a place in cities we often tend to forget or hide, despite being part of our society. It functions as a neighborhood, a community of people devoid of freedom where everyone plays a role and has an own function. And in Pianosa, as an island, the community aspect is even stronger and unique.

Curatorship

Marta Marini and Francesca Matracchi

American Cities

American Cities - Talks and Friendship is a cultural and linguistic volunteering project conceived by Farm Cultural Park in collaboration with the American Consulate in Naples and NAS Sigonella in Catania.

Young American Sailors in uniform will do Talks in English, lasting just over 6 minutes in which they will tell Italian high school students, as well as who they are and what they do, where they come from, their hometown, history, demography, the main attractions, culture and traditions of their cities.

American Cities aims not only to promote knowledge of the United States, its small, medium and large cities and to promote knowledge of the American language but also to consolidate friendships between American sailors and Italian students.