Two Key Works Define Lesley Lokko's Biennale Architettura 2023

Lesley Lokko, curator of the 18th Biennale Architettura in Venice, centered her exhibition on Africa and its architectural diaspora, describing selected practitioners as a "force majeure"—unforeseen, inevitable, and irresistible agents of change. Two installations epitomize her radical stance. David Adjaye's "Kwaeε" at the Arsenale is a black wooden lattice structure evoking archetypal African forms, holding its own against works by past masters like Aravena, Siza, and Souto de Moura. Ibrahim Mahama's "Parliament of Ghosts" at the Giardini documents the construction of a theater-like building in Tamale, Ghana, through forty photographs of performances staged during each phase, exploring collective memory and colonial residues. Adjaye represents African architects trained in the West producing high-level Western architecture, while Mahama, an artist rather than an architect, prioritizes process over formal outcome, focusing on what architecture generates in people's lives. The Biennale shifts emphasis from finished objects to deeper human meanings, echoing Aravena's 2016 edition "Reporting from the Front." Lokko demonstrates that Africans can achieve equal formal results given equal starting conditions, but also highlights collective dimensions, as in Mahama's work. Whether this will spark the desired exchange remains to be seen.