Hashim Sarkis Curates 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale

The 2021 Venice Architecture Biennale, curated by Lebanese architect Hashim Sarkis, opened with the central question: how will we live together on a warming planet? The exhibition is divided into five sections across the Arsenale and Central Pavilion. At the Arsenale, sections 'Among diverse beings', 'As new households', and 'As emerging communities' explore physical and digital architectures that redefine community and family, with installations like 'Your bathroom is a battleground' and 'Catalogue for the post-human'. In the Central Pavilion, 'Across the borders' and 'As one planet' focus on planetary relations, using digital data and sensory experiences to highlight climate change, migration, and resource inequity. Works include 'What we can’t live without', an atlas of endangered species near megacities; 'Melting landscape', a melting snow pile; 'Future island in Venice', a heated rock from Sweden; and 'Resurrecting the sublime', a diorama with the scent of a flower extinct since 1912. 'Building with waves' proposes using marine currents to create new islands. The exhibition also addresses refugee conditions in 'Playscapes of exile' and 'Seeking refuge', and colonial legacies in 'the Quino treaty'. Sarkis frames architecture as a discipline for future redemption, advocating for new physical and social 'middle grounds' beyond global cities and hinterlands.