08-07-2016

Biennale of Venice 2016. Fair Building, Poland pavilion.

Biennale di Venezia,

Exhibition, Venice Biennale,

We continue our journey through the 15th International Architecture exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.



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Biennale of Venice 2016. Fair Building, Poland pavilion. We continue our journey through the 15th International Architecture exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia. This time we're exploring the pavilion of Poland, which opted to inform from an often forgotten front: the construction worker.



“Who made your building?” is the question positioned above the entrance to the Polish Pavilion in the Biennale Giardini. An essential question because as many expressions of architecture as there are, it is all bound by a single common denominator - the labourers who build it.





The “Fair Building” exhibition therefore explores a terrain that is both very concrete, and highly ethical. Curator Dominika Janicka with Martyna Janicka and Michał Gdak welcomes visitors into the pavilion separated into two parts - one is made up of a module steel scaffolding installation, the physical replication of a building site, where documentary videos filmed in a range of building sites using Go-Pro cameras are screened and the other has comfy sofas where visitors can sit back and enjoy the infographics and promotional videos from an investor's showroom apartment.



Not surprisingly, “Fair Building” references the “Fair Trade” concept, posing the question about why there are standards for almost everything in our consumer society, but not for the construction of a building. The numbers from this front citing workplace accidents and deaths unfortunately read very much like war bulletins. Because despite all the advanced technology at our disposal, almost all construction work is done by manual labourers, most of whom are unskilled and often working in poor safety conditions.



The Polish pavilion at the 15th International Architecture exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia presents the heroes of the day-to-day work of the building industry, the labourers. In the words of Dominika Janicka: “By presenting the stories of persons directly involved in the building process, we ask whether ’fair trade’ is achievable in the field. (...) We don't focus on look for culprits (...) Rather, we create a space to reflect on how to make this process not only effective but also fair.”



Fair Building is an installation that encompasses one of the fundamental ethical aspects of today's architecture, far too often forgotten behind iconic buildings and declarations of sustainable materials: the human front, which may be much less showy but has a huge social impact.

Christiane Bürklein

Fair Building, Polish Pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 2016
28 May to 27 November 2016
Giardini della Biennale, Venice
Curator: Dominika Janicka 
Curatorial collaboration: Martyna Janicka and Michał Gdak
Polish Pavilion Commissioner: Hanna Wróblewska
Deputy commissioner: Joanna Waśko
Images of the exhibition by Maciej Jelonek
Find out more. http://labiennale.art.pl

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