Nigerian Pavilion · 15th International Architecture Exhibition, la Biennale di Venezia
Diminished Capacity
Ola-Dele Kuku — curated by Camilla Boemio
The exhibition
Rewriting history,
starting from Nigeria.
«Diminished Capacity» intends to analyze an historical transaction moment with the ambition to rewrite history, starting from Nigeria to provide unpublished interpretations.
In this condition rewrite history becomes a necessary evolution. The wrong reading of Africa transforms continent itself in a country poised in perpetual opposition to restlessness; what is its identity being a ghetto in forms and structures unsuitable? The Africa is not a country. In that conflict the first Nigerian Pavilion wants to prospect a new methodologies.
- Exhibition period
- 26 May – 27 November 2016
- Venue
- Spazio Punch
Fondamenta San Biagio 800/O, Giudecca, Venice - Context
- 15th International Architecture Exhibition
la Biennale di Venezia, National Participations - Pavilion
- First Pavilion of Nigeria
Ola-Dele Kuku
Conflict as an engine of change.
Conflict is one of the recurrent themes in the work of Ola-Dele Kuku. The architect-artist sees that as one of the driving mechanisms in our world, and as a tool to set change in motion. ‘Conflict has played a crucial role since the dawn of creation, just think of the stories of the Big Bang and the paradise of Adam and Eve’.
Throughout his practice, Ola-Dele Kuku has consistently re-shaped representation in a timely challenge. Working with both drawing, installation and sculpture, he has revisited the mainstays of architectural representational methods – plan, elevation, section – to inject unsettling slippages into their rigorous formalism. This new body of work fully embraces an analytic socio-philosophical visceral slant, confronted complex issues such as resource depletion and their manipulation, migration, micro and macro global changes, an alternative vision of west Africa, growing impoverishment and the diminished capacity of a country in a multiplication use of manipulation strategies.
Credits
- Commissioner
- Mr. Nkanta George UfotDirector – International Cultural Relations, Ministry of Information and Culture
- Curator
- Mrs. Camilla Boemiocurator, writer, critic
- Exhibitor
- Mr. Ola-Dele Kukuarchitect – artist
Photographic documentation
Inside the pavilion
The installation at Spazio Punch. Photos by Barbara Rossi, Riccardo Tosetto and Alice Mestriner. Click an image to enlarge.
Materials
Official posters
Low-resolution image: replace with the original file if available.
Further reading