An image of the British Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia
©

British Council

Wednesday 07 May 2025

 

The exhibition, titled GBR – Geology of Britannic Repair, is a collaboration between a multi-disciplinary team of curators – Kabage Karanja and Stella Mutegi of Nairobi-based architecture studio Cave_bureau; and UK-based curator and writer Owen Hopkins and academic Professor Kathryn Yusoff. The commission is a core part of the British Council’s UK/Kenya Season 2025, which celebrates the creative, cultural and educational links between the countries of the UK and Kenya.

The exhibition’s geographical, geological and conceptual focus is the Rift Valley, a geological formation that runs from southeastern Africa through Mozambique, Kenya and Ethiopia, along the Red Sea, through Jordan, Palestine, Israel and Lebanon to southern Turkey.

The exhibition comprises installations developed by the curatorial team as well as installations they have commissioned from a range of other practitioners from around the world, including Mae-ling Lokko and Gustavo Crembil, Thandi Loewenson, and the Palestine Regeneration Team / PART (Yara Sharif, Nasser Golzari and Murray Fraser).

The exhibition begins on the Pavilion’s façade, which is partially obscured by a beaded veil of agricultural waste briquettes and clay and glass beads. Produced in Kenya and India respectively, the clay beads echo traditional Maasai practices, while the glass beads recall those made on the Venetian island of Murano, which were historically used as imperial currency for exchange of metals, minerals and enslaved persons. Titled Double Vision, the veil casts the pavilion’s neo-classical facade in hues of black, brown and red, evoking the ‘other earths’ that have been displaced by systems of empire.

Inside the Pavilion, the exhibition unfolds throughout six gallery spaces. In the first gallery, an immersive and multi-sensory installation, The Earth Compass, connects London and Nairobi through celestial maps of the night sky above both cities on 12 December 1963, the day of Kenya’s independence from British control. Framed by a cartography of the national cumulative carbon emissions on the surrounding walls, The Earth Compass reflects on the projections and realities constructed by empire and asks us to consider the reparative possibilities of alternative modes of world-building.

In the second gallery – the Rift Room – the installation emerges literally and figuratively from the Great Rift Valley, a geological formation stretching from the Middle East through East Africa which traces one of humankind’s earliest migration routes and which remains a site of negotiation and frequent conflict between those who departed and those who stayed behind. Entering the room, visitors congregate around a large-scale, bronze cast of a Kenyan Rift Valley cave – a site known locally as the ‘baboon parliament.’ Around the model, the gallery’s underlying brick structure is revealed to enable the insertion of Kenyan and British bricks into the pavilion’s structure. This act of ‘Insurgent Geology’ serves also as a conduit to a series of conversations, curated in collaboration with e-flux Architecture, exploring stories of colonial resistance, material reclamation and planetary reimagination.

The third room in the Pavilion houses a project by Yara Sharif, Nasser Golzari and Murray Fraser of the Palestine Regeneration Team (PART), emerging from their ongoing initiative ‘Atlas of Materials’ (2010–present), which explores using salvaged materials and innovative techniques for reconstruction and regeneration in Gaza and other areas, addressing scarcity and climate justice. Titled Objects of Repair, PART’s British Pavilion installation explores fracture and repair in the architectures and geologies of Palestine, looking to the potential of reusing salvaged materials in rebuilding what has been lost, to create new architectural skins that incorporate the scars of trauma. The work envisions an alternative potential reality – a world of impermanence, resilience and expression, born from architectures of accumulated, reparative changes.

In the fourth gallery, visitors encounter a dramatic, undulating, rattan weave structure – the result of a collaboration between Cave_bureau and Professor Phil Ayres at the Royal Danish Academy, developed following a research trip undertaken by Cave_bureau to the Kenyan coastal town of Shimoni in 2021. The town is the site of the Shimoni Slave Caves, a system of natural limestone caves which once served as holding cells for enslaved Africans before they were transported further afield. Once connected by a hidden corridor stretching several kilometres to the Three Giant Sister Caves, where escaped slaves sought refuge, much of the network has now been silted up and the past trauma of the site, though still intensely felt in the surrounding communities, has been erased on the surface. The British Pavilion installation, a 1:1 scale reproduction of the interior of one of the Shimoni Caves, reimagines a space of trauma as a space for repair and healing, uncovering forgotten histories from the accumulation of silt and sand.

An installation by architectural designer and researcher Thandi Loewenson, Lumumba’s Grave, explores so-called ‘technofossils’ – the remnants of man-made objects sent into space, amassed in orbit into an archaeology of imperialist expansion beyond the earth. A series of graphite drawings line the walls and ceiling, showing the scenes of exploitation and extraction that connect this extraterrestrial detritus to its earthly origins, while models of African space programme projects hang in the room, suspended in a celestial geology. In these objects, the violence of rocketry is overwritten with a story of liberation; workers, dreamers, rocket scientists, and combatants become the architects of our possible future.

In the final gallery of the Pavilion, Mae-ling Lokko, a Ghanaian-Filipino designer, academic and artist, and Gustavo Crembil, an Argentinean architectural designer, present Vena Cava, an installation that seeks to reclaim Kew Garden’s Palm House as a site for generative justice. The world’s first large-scale greenhouse allowed for tropical plants to be transplanted into temperate climes, becoming a symbol of the empire’s reach and aspiration for control. Vena Cava itself is empty, its timber structure inverting the Palm House’s pioneering iron and glass construction. Patterned panels of emerging material streams such as fly ash, bioplastics, and fungi illustrate a shift away from mechanical environmental regulation, and towards a reparative architecture that foregrounds considerations of material life cycles and ecological restitution.

The curators said:

"The exhibition is a collaboration between UK and Kenya, two countries that have had a difficult, unequal and often brutalised history. As curators, we see this collaboration as an intervention in building reparative relations, one that acknowledges the rifted histories of colonial afterlives, and the role of architecture in constructing new imaginaries. We hope visitors to the exhibition will question who gets to represent and imagine the world in a time of planetary fire."

Sevra Davis, Director of Architecture, Design and Fashion at the British Council and Commissioner of the British Pavilion, said:

"The British Pavilion in Venice is a flagship initiative for the British Council, as part of our cultural relations mission to build connections, understanding and trust around the world. This year, the curatorial collaboration between the UK and Kenya brings a new dimension to the British Pavilion. GBR – Geology of Britannic Repair showcases new thinking about how architecture as we know it can be better connected to the earth and contribute to a future based on repair and renewal."

The British Council is delighted to have The Dalmore as an official supporting partner of the British Pavilion at the Biennale Architettura 2025, cementing their ongoing commitment to support exceptional design talent and creativity.

The British Council is also pleased to share that 10N Collective has joined as an official supporting partner of the 2025 British Pavilion, a partnership that reflects a shared commitment to creative thinking and innovation.

ENDS

 

Notes to Editor

Press pack for the British Pavilion: download from this Google Drive folder 

For media enquiries regarding the British Council’s commission for the British Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia please contact:
Colette Baillie: Colette.baillie@britishcouncil.org

Exhibition details

  • Title: GBR – Geology of Britannic Repair
  • Commissioner: Sevra Davis British Council; Curators: Owen Hopkins, Kathryn Yusoff, Kabage Karanja, Stella Mutegi; Exhibitors: cave_bureau, Palestine Regeneration Team (PART), Mae Ling Lokko & Gustavo Crembil, Thandi Loewenson; Venue: Giardini
  • The exhibition will run from Saturday 10 May to Sunday 23 November 2025 (pre-opening 8 May and 9 May)
  • The British Pavilion is commissioned and managed by British Council Architecture.
  • For latest news on the British Council commission: https://venicebiennale.britishcouncil.org/ 
  • For British Council Venice press office updates: https://venicebiennale.britishcouncil.org/press 

Accreditation information

Press accreditation from La Biennale is needed to access the official Pavilions of 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia ahead of the public opening.

For more information on how to apply, please contact: archpress@labiennale.org 

About the British Pavilion Selection Committee

A panel of architects, educators and cultural professionals from across the UK and Kenya selected the winning team from a shortlist of four proposals.

The advisory panel of leading architecture professionals changes for every edition of the Biennale Architettura 2025. The selection panel for 2025 consists of:

  • Sevra Davis (Chair), Commissioner of the British Pavilion; Director of Architecture, Design and Fashion at the British Council
  • Grace Choi, Director, Grace Choi Architecture
  • Tom Dyckhoff, Architecture critic, historian, broadcaster and judge on Channel 4’s ‘Handmade: Britain's Best Woodworker’
  • Professor Aseem Inam, Professor and Chair in Urban Design, Welsh School of Architecture, Cardiff University
  • Joy Mboya, Cultural Activist and Founding Executive Director of the GoDown Arts Centre, Nairobi, Kenya
  • Professor Washington Ochieng, Professor at Imperial College and Trustee of the Science Museum
  • Muyiwa Oki, President of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA)
  • Dr Huda Tayob, Lecturer in Architectural Studies at Manchester School of Architecture
  • Tamsie Thomson, CEO, The Royal Incorporation of Architects in Scotland (RIAS)

About the curators

Owen Hopkins is Director of the Farrell Centre at Newcastle University. Previously he was Senior Curator of Exhibitions and Education at Sir John Soane’s Museum and Architecture Programme Curator at the Royal Academy of Arts. Alongside his curatorial practice, he is author or editor of numerous books and journals, including, most recently, Towards Another Architecture: New Visions for the 21st Century.

Kathryn Yusoff is Professor of Inhuman Geography at Queen Mary University of London. Her award winning (Association of American Geographers, 2021) transdisciplinary research addresses the colonial afterlives of geology and race, critical environmental studies and the in/humanities. She is author of Geologic Life and A Billion Black Anthropocenes or None.

Kabage Karanja is an architect, co-founder and director of Cave_bureau, an architectural and research firm based in Nairobi that he started alongside Stella Mutegi in 2014. He leads the research and aesthetic direction of the bureau and is currently a Louis I. Kahn Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at Yale School of Architecture.

Stella Mutegi is an architect, co-founder and director of Cave_bureau, an architectural and research firm based in Nairobi that she started alongside Kabage Karanja in 2014. She heads the technical department at Cave, where she orchestrates the seamless coordination of Cave’s ideas into built form. She is currently a Louis I. Kahn Visiting Professor of Architectural Design at Yale School of Architecture.

About the British Council

The British Council is the UK’s international organisation for cultural relations and educational opportunities. We support peace and prosperity by building connections, understanding and trust between people in the UK and countries worldwide. We do this through our work in arts and culture, education and the English language. We work with people in over 200 countries and territories and are on the ground in more than 100 countries.

About the Venice Fellowships

A key part of British Council’s presence in Venice, the Fellowships Programme offers a unique opportunity for emerging creatives and future leaders to represent the UK on an international level whilst broadening their perspectives, making connections and developing their creative practice.

As exhibition ambassadors of GBR – Geology Of Britannic Repair (2025), the Fellows will engage visiting members of the public and create moments of intercultural dialogue and connection. They also have the opportunity to develop their own research and/or creative projects, hence using the Biennale as a platform for artistic, scholarly, and professional development. Through these contributions, often created in collaboration with one another, the Fellows elevate the British Pavilion to an important reference point for universities, artists, and creative organisations around the world.

In partnership with twenty-four UK and Kenya Higher Education Institutions and pioneering creative enterprises, British Council is supporting forty-six Fellows in 2025. New for this year, we are delighted to welcome our four Fellows from Kenya as part of the UK/Kenya Season 2025.

Reflecting the international scope of La Biennale, there are over twenty nationalities represented in our 2025 cohort of Fellows. In addition to offering conversations and tours in English, our Fellows will be welcoming visitors in a multitude of languages, including French, Hausa, Igbo, Malayalam, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Swahili, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yoruba and more. All Fellows are connected to a creative organisation/Higher Education institution in UK or Kenya.

https://venicebiennale.britishcouncil.org/fellowship 

About The Dalmore

The Dalmore is a supporting partner of the British Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. Founded in 1839 on the shores of the Cromarty Firth in the Scottish Highlands, The Dalmore has been making masterpieces of Single Malt Whisky for over 180 years.

The 12-point silver stag which proudly adorns each bottle was bestowed upon the first chieftain of Clan Mackenzie in 1263 by King Alexander III of Scotland. The stag became the whisky’s emblem when descendants of the clan took over the distillery in 1878. The Dalmore distillery’s collection of idiosyncratic stills creates a New Make spirit of unique character and depth – robust and fruity, particularly well-suited to longer and more complex maturation. This allows The Dalmore’s renowned whisky makers to develop spirit over longer periods, continuing a tradition of visionary whisky-making as they fully express their art using rare casks from some of the world’s finest wineries and bodegas.

The Dalmore is a keen and active supporter of the creative industry, as demonstrated by The Luminary Series and The Portfolio Series, where the worlds of design and whisky making artistry combine, resulting in exceptional collaborations.

About 10N Collective

10N is a collective assembled by Egis Group, a global multidisciplinary engineering, architecture, construction and operations firm. Bringing together established and specialist practices 10 Design, WW+P, SvN, Fenwick Iribarren Architects, U+A and Omrania, the Collective offers a holistic approach to reinventing and improving the built environment. Headquartered in London and with over 900 creative talents working in 20 studios across five continents, the group harnesses global expertise in masterplanning, urban policy and design strategies that are key to addressing the climate emergency and contribute to a more sustainable and equitable world.