The installation ACE/AAP by Olalekan Jeyifous ’99, BArch ’01, depicts the departure lounge of a fictional African transportation system. (Provided)

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For Some Cornellians, It’s a Big Red ‘Biennale’ in Venice

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By Lindsay Lennon

The Venice Biennale is one of the most notable events in the worlds of art and architecture—and in 2023, it features the work of several Cornellians. The showcase, which runs from May through November, is turning heads for being what the New York Times calls “the most ambitious and pointedly political” Biennale in recent memory.

While the Biennale has encompassed both art and architecture over its 128-year history, since 1980 it has focused on each field in alternating years. The 2023 event—officially the 18th Venice Biennale of Architecture—is the first to spotlight the people and culture of Africa, with more than half the exhibition’s 89 participants from that continent or its diaspora.

Alumni of the College of Architecture, Art, and Planning represented at the Biennale include Brooklyn-based artist Olalekan Jeyifous ’99, BArch ’01, who won its Silver Lion Award for his multimedia installation, ACE/AAP (seen above).

A transparent greenhouse style building with wood inside — Reclaimed wood was used in a “meeting house” as part of *chaord* by Emmanuel Pratt ’00, BArch ’02.

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Depicting the bright-green-and-yellow departure lounge of a fictional African transportation system, the exhibit imagines a world where Africa’s ecology has not been damaged by colonialism—and, instead, the continent employs Indigenous techniques to develop advanced, ecofriendly travel methods.

In a work titled chaord, designer Emmanuel Pratt ’00, BArch ’02—who co-founded the Sweet Water Foundation, a practice devoted to regenerative neighborhood development on Chicago’s South Side—created an assortment of objects and mixed-media pieces related to his organization’s mission.

For instance, a “meeting house” comprising reclaimed wood is, the artist says, “designed as a lesson plan in urban ecology.”

Another installation, unknown, unknown, was a collaboration by three Cornellians: AAP Dean J. Meejin Yoon ’95; Eric Höweler ’94, MArch ’96, an associate professor of architecture at Harvard and Yoon’s cofounder at the design studio Höweler + Yoon; and Mabel Wilson, a Columbia faculty member currently serving as an A.D. White Professor-at-Large on the Hill.

Drawing from archival research, it comprises a remembrance space for the enslaved people who built, operated, and maintained the University of Virginia in the 1800s. According to its creators, the immersive exhibit provides “an ephemeral sonic, visual, and haptic memorial” to the violence and dehumanization inflicted on these 4,000 enslaved laborers.

An art installation honoring enslaved people — The collaborative work *unknown, unknown* honors and memorializes the thousands of enslaved laborers who built the University of Virginia in the 19th century.

As Ghanaian-Scottish architect and scholar Lesley Lokko, curator of this year’s central Biennale exhibition, said in a statement: “Central to all the projects is the primacy and potency of one tool: the imagination. It is impossible to build a better world if one cannot first imagine it.”

Top: The installation ACE/AAP by Olalekan Jeyifous ’99, BArch ’01, depicts the departure lounge of a fictional African transportation system. All images provided.

Published June 9, 2023

For Some Cornellians, It’s a Big Red ‘Biennale’ in Venice

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