The Art Blog picks up the thread of the ongoing series of reports brought to us by the interns manning the UAE’s National Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. Chaitanya Krishna Kumar is an architect currently practicing with a consultancy in Dubai and is the co-founder of the architectural blog The Tryptic Note, which aims to contextualise architecture in the Middle East, by studying socially and environmentally sustainable architecture. She graduated from Manipal University, India with a Bachelor’s in architecture and she chooses to bring us this report from the Turkish Pavilion:
The Turkish Pavilion at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale, aims to highlight the waning away of state boundaries in the Mediterranean from the 11th to the 19th century, due to trade. The Mediterranean served as an intermediary for surrounding cultures, and allowed for free movement of languages, goods and ideas. Inspired by the “Lingua Franca”, the shared language developed at the time, a shared architectural language, “Architectura Franca”, has been proposed. This exhibition explores the similarities between Istanbul and Venice, which featured dockyards of comparable size and production during the period. Therefore, the ship shed acts as a ‘building block of a shared architectural heritage’.
The exhibition, which is entitled Darzana (meaning dockyard), features a final vessel in deconstructed form, called Bastarda. Its concept links the abandoned ship shed in Istanbul where it was built to the ship shed in Venice where it is being exhibited. It is also fitting because the Arsenale venue is a complex of former shipyards. The Bastarda was built with more than 500 pieces including seven kilometres of steel cable and abandoned materials found on site.
The pavilion itself is a linear space with blacked out windows on one side and tinted windows on the other. This results in a dark space where the installation can be highlighted using lighting. It renders feelings of a ship frozen in time and is haunting. It is a beautiful installation that may seem misplaced at an architecture biennale at first, but it conveys a message that transcends themes or topics. It stands out boldly in a Biennale otherwise heavy with analytics and text.
The exhibition is curated by Feride Cicekoglu, Mehmet Kutukcuoglu and Ertug Ucar and is Turkey’s second participation at the architecture exhibition. It is coordinated by the Istanbul Foundation for Culture and Arts (IKSV). In a time when economic and political unions are being discussed between countries on a global level, the Darzana fearlessly poses options for frontier infringement through connectivity and hybridity and aims to gather cultures through art and architecture. After the conclusion of the Venice Biennale in November, the Bastarda will continue her journey and become a centre piece of a museum in Istanbul. Therefore, she is a symbol for free movement across borders and thresholds.
Find out more about Chaitanya on Twitter- @callingcollin and Instagram: @callingcollin. Follow the Venice Interns on on @veniceinterns and hashtags #uaeinvenice and #veniceinterns
