Australia’s exhibition at the nineteenth International Architecture Exhibition has opened today in the Venice Giardini as part of the Venice Architecture Biennale Vernissage. Titled Home, the exhibition design is authored by an all-First Nations team and focuses on finding commonalities between cultures through shared meanings of “home.”
The installation features a curved rammed earth wall and bench seat that wrap a circular, sand-filled ceremonial space at the centre of the pavilion. Lining the perimeter of the space, a plaster-cast “living cloak” bears the textural imprints of its fabrication.
A release from the Australian Institute of Architects, which commissioned the project, notes that the design encapsulates “a serene and highly sensory domain […] inspired by the vast, beautifully storied natural terrains of the Australian continent.” The release adds that “the exhibition explores the relationship of Country with the oldest continuous living culture in the world.”
For the design and construction of the exhibition, the three appointed creative directors – Dr Michael Mossman, Emily McDaniel and Jack Gillmer-Lilley – collaborated with an extended creative sphere of First Nations practitioners, including Kaylie Salvatori, Clarence Slockee, Elle Davidson and Bradley Kerr.
Through the process of creating Home in Venice, the directors aimed to demonstrate the power of a collaborative design approach to Australian architecture rooted in First Nations yarning. They noted that their vision of Home “presents a design approach that has been gathering momentum that Indigenises the built environment through moments and locations between cultures.”
“For Home, guests will share their stories to cultivate a deeper sense of agency, custodianship and reciprocity,” the directors said. “This will contribute to the evolution of living environments that continually regenerate ways of being, knowing and doing through the activation of inclusive dialogue and relationships.”
Australia’s exhibition at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale is the first since the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice Referendum. With their installation, the directors have aimed to pursue further opportunities for dialogue between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people.
According to the Institute’s release, the yarning process at the heart of the creative directors’ approach to Home highlights a culturally inclusive practice that breaks down hierarchies to allow all voices to be heard.
The installation brought together 125 architecture and design students from 11 universities to participate in making the exhibit. The students were united under a learning program led by hosted by the University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, and led by Mossman and Davidson, in what the Institute has called “the largest school of architecture collaboration in Australia.”
Students were tasked with designing “living belongings” – objects that articulated their deep reflections of home – that visitors are invited to interact with.
Co-creative director Emily McDaniel commented, “Home is a generous and timely offering to the Venice Architecture Biennale that will welcome visitors as active contributors and participants.”
The Australia Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale is open to the public from Saturday 10 May to Sunday 23 November 2025.
Source: Architecture - architectureau
