13th International Architecture Biennale of São Paulo Opens Co-Curatorship Call for Proposals
From a reality of intense transformations generated by the COVID-19 pandemic around the world, the 13th International Architecture Biennale of São Paulo presents “Reconstruction” as the central issue for the Co-Curatorship Call for Proposals.
The Brazilian Institute of Architects (IABsp), executor of the International Architecture Biennale of São Paulo, after leaving the draft brief for public consultation from October 10th to 25th, launches, on November 4th, the Co-Curatorship Call for Proposals for the 13th BIA. Proposals can be sent through the website english.bienaldearquitetura.org.br until January 24th, 2021. This edition counts with a 12-member commission that includes IAB representatives from other states to confer plurality in the monitoring of the event of national and international reach.
This edition of the Architecture Biennale starts off from a reality of intense transformations generated by the COVID-19 pandemic around the world, which required intense efforts by urban, social and professional organizations for survival. In this way, we propose a closer look on the challenges imposed by this crisis, as well as reflections and proposals that set out for social practices, spatial arrangements and the possibilities of living and transforming realities in urban and rural areas.
Therefore, the central issue of the 13th International Biennale of São Paulo, which will take place in 2022, is RECONSTRUCTION. “Based on the idea of rebuilding, recasting and renewing the relationships between social groups with their domestic spaces, between citizens and public spaces and personal and professional plots, which happen on the confined spaces and in the collective use ones, during the COVID-19 pandemic”, highlights Sabrina Fontenelle, resident curator of this edition and cultural director of IABsp.
To this end, the Co-Curatorship Call proposes to unfold the concept of RECONSTRUCTION in five preliminary guiding axes: democracy, bodies, memory, information and ecology. According to Fontenelle, the event must also prioritize sites of the city to connect and integrate actions: a network of public and community centers where integrated urban and environmental transformation projects are underway in dialogue with local communities (Jardim Guarani, Jardim Pantanal, Parque Pinheirinho D‘Água, Jardim Lapenna and Parque Novo Mundo) in partnership with the Pacto Pelas Cidades Justas; and cultural equipment and public spaces on the Avenida Paulista area. Places to host exhibitions, debates and activities that involve populations in the city, with the understanding that multiple manifestations must be welcomed and discussed in this event.
“This process will seek to contribute as a strengthening of a network of collaboration – involving universities, cultural institutions, social movements, among others – which consist in a social pact to share projects, narratives, experiences, tools that make it possible to understand, act and transform the environment and urban culture.”, completes Fernando Tulio Salva Rocha Franco, president of IABsp.
About the guiding axes:
In a country facing threats of democratic recession, the point of Democracy offers a critical reflection on how to guarantee and encourage political practices in urban spaces and on how can cities be transformed to more accessible, safe, welcoming, inviting places, but also be where contrasts and conflicts are latent, discussing questions about the presence of different social classes, races and genders. It also proposes that innovative solutions are stimulated in relation to democratic planning and management, based on experiences linked to the territory.
The axis Bodies (2) launched a discussion about the relationship between space and issues such as intersectionality, vulnerabilities and social policies. We suggest a reflection on how to guarantee collective practices in view of questions of public health, discrimination, violence and rights violations, in order to rethink how to guarantee access, coexistence and circulation of people. Besides, it announces the urgency of guaranteeing specific programs for specific groups, such as children, youths, children, bearers of special needs, especially in vulnerable territories during this crisis, expanding the debate on the vulnerabilities of bodies in the cities’ flow. In relation to the architectural spaces, it is also proposed to reflect on the flexibility of domestic, professional and institutional spaces facing the challenge of ensuring diverse uses and collective health in the context of isolation and resumption of activities.
Understanding Memory (3) as a collective agent that confronts us during the strangeness of a new world and comforts us in relation to its permanence, but also as a process of permanent re-elaboration of this past in the present and that has the property of conserving or deleting certain aspects, the challenge is to understand how to use the pre-existences to reinvent your daily life. This project also aims to reflect on how architecture and urban infrastructure can collaborate for the construction of a collective memory that becomes more compliant or processes of (re)occupation, (re)construction and (re)significance of the cities.
In this sense, Information (4) opens horizons for the debate on urban and social policies based on a theme that deals all aspects of contemporary life, but it is also restricted to specialists. We propose to shed light on the questions of privacy and protection of data, as experiments with models of governance of public and private data not managed by two bodies of daily practices, stimulating or debating collaborative cartography, facial recognition, algorithmic discrimination, internet of things (IoT) and of urban data science in a perspective of governance of cities.
We close the axes of this Biennale with the question of Ecology (5), fundamental for the balance between urban and natural areas, the discussion on ecology, proposes a reflection on a planning of cities that is attentive to environmental balance and to the development of productive activities, aimed at the quality of life of its population, taking into account climate change, low carbon cities, urban agriculture and food security.
In July and August 2020, three preparatory debates for the co-curatorial contest were broadcasted with topics related to the very essence of art and architecture exhibitions, that proposed to think about the role of architects, urban planners and so many other professionals in the construction of more just and democratic cities. For the second half of 2021, there are other Open Calls planned, to select projects, activities and interventions linked to the Biennale.
