The U.S. Pavilion at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale, will present the exhibition Dimensions of Citizenship. The exhibition’s curators invited seven architecture offices to explore how citizenship may be defined in the built environment, at seven different spatial scales. The seven installations will raise questions about issues including belonging and ecology.

Commissioned by the Chicago School of Art Institute (SAIC) and the University of Chicago (UChicago), the exhibition will feature architecture offices Amanda Williams & Andres L. Hernandez, Design Earth, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, Keller Easterling, SCAPE Studio, and Studio Gang. Architects were invited to question the ways in which citizenship can be embodied, defined, constructed, adopted, contested or expressed in the built environment, all at seven different spatial scales: “citizen, community, region, nation, globe, network and cosmos “. The seven installations will be raising questions on themes such as belonging and ecology.

Commissioners Niall Atkinson (Associate Professor of Architectural History at UChicago), Ann Lui (Assistant Professor at SAIC), Mimi Zeiger (Independent Critic, Editor, Curator and Educator) and Associate Commissioner Iker Gil (Lecturer at SAIC ) said: “Whether we think or not, we all occupy different categories of overlapping categories of space at the same time, from the level of the neighborhood, to the nation, to the planet as a whole. The teams that have created the projects in Dimensions of Citizenship have made lasting contributions to understanding the potential meanings of citizenship at these different scales, each of which can involve various legal, political, economic and social issues”.

To expand the exhibition, the curators announced that they will present film and video works that explore multiple perspectives (“narrative, speculative, or impressionistic”) in the american pavilion’s rotunda. Entitled “Transit Screening Lounge,” this collection features recent work by video artists Mandana Moghaddam, David Rueter, Marissa Lee Benedict and Mika Rottenberg, film director Frances Bodomo and architect-film director Liam Young. As reflections on the spatial conditions of citizenship, these evocative works join installations by the pavilion’s seven commissioned offices.

Texts from exhibition’s press release.

« Dimensions of Citizenship », from May 26th till November 25th 2018
United States Pavilion (Giardini, Venise)
Curators : Niall Atkinson, Ann Lui, Mimi Zeiger, Iker Gil
Production : School of the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Chicago
Colaborating architects : Amanda Williams & Andres L. Hernandez, Design Earth, Diller Scofidio + Renfro, Estudio Teddy Cruz + Fonna Forman, Keller Easterling, SCAPE, and Studio Gang