Climate Wunderkammer
the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia
20th of May – 26th of November 2023
The exhibition “Climate Wunderkammer” is a Collateral Event of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale Architettura 2023 in Venice, which runs from May 21 to November 26, 2023. RWTH has organized the event with support from the IDEA League universities Politecnico di Milano (PoliMi), Delft University of Technology, Chalmers University of Technology, and six other international institutions. The exhibition aims to have visitors experience the effects of climate change with all their senses while it also showcases practical solutions for coping with and adapting to climate change. On display is a collection of stories about our planet from all around the world conveyed via drawings, videos, and voice recordings.
La Biennale Architecttura is one of the most prestigious public exhibitions on architecture and cities in the world, welcoming around 300,000 visitors each year.
The RWTH Aachen’s UNESCO Chair in Cultural Heritage and Urbanism, in collaboration with Politecnico Milano and IUAV Venice University, has organized an exhibition on climate change and resilience as a collateral event of the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia (May 22-November 26 2023). The exhibition entitled Climate Wunderkammer aims to immerse ourselves in a multi-sensory experience of climate change impact while sharing practical solutions to address and adapt to it. It exhibits a collection of narratives from our planet through drawings, videos and voice recordings, a Wunderkammer of messages in bottles to open and discover. In each story depicting the threat and impact of climate change, we present tentative answers to adapt or address the new condition to inspire places undergoing similar climate trends in the future. We believe that the climate has no borders and that no one can solve this global issue alone on a local scale. This archive of narratives will generate the seed for setting up a global platform for sharing knowledge and mutual learning, especially learning from the most fragile places undergoing the impact of climate change.
In addition to an installation, the Climate Wunderkammer offers the ‘Climate Roundtables’ and the Atlas of Hope Conference (29 June 2023) during the Biennale. The roundtables are hybrid dialogues led by the involved institutions in which various participants share and reflect on narratives and practices of response, adaptation and transformation. The conference offers a platform for sharing knowledge between invited academics, practitioners and students from all over the world to collaborate on developing narratives of hope through devising possible actions and solutions.
Format
On site, Venice
Climate change and the accompanying ecological degradation is creating a world unknown to current generations of humans, which requires a mindset of resilience and hope if we are to navigate the challenges ahead. Designers are faced with three challenges. The first is to find ways to address the immediate challenges of specific, predictable disasters; the second is a more proactive adaptation of the built environment through measures such as diversity and adaptability to as yet unknown challenges; and the third, more profound challenge, is to transform our ways of being and doing so that we can create a better world from the ashes of the old. These three challenges inform the themes around which we structured this project.
Our installation, ‘Climate Wunderkammer’, aims to immerse ourselves in a multi-sensory experience of climate change impact while sharing practical solutions to address and adapt to it. It exhibits a collection of narratives from our planet through drawings, videos, and voice recordings, a Wunderkammer of messages in bottles to open and discover. In each story depicting the threat and impact of climate change, we present tentative answers to adapt or address the new condition to inspire places undergoing similar climate trends in the future. We believe that the climate has no borders and that no one can solve this global issue alone on a local scale. This archiv e of narratives will generate the seed for setting up a global platform for sharing knowledge and mutual learning, especially learning from the most fragile places undergoing the
Curators
- Christa Reicher (RWTH)
- Ceren Sezer (RWTH)
- Eugenio Morello (PoliMi)
- Francesco Musco (IUAV)
Participants
- Mohamed Assem
- Cem Ataman
- Monica Billger
- Carlo Federico dall’Omo
- Andy van den Dobbelsteen
- Jan Hugo
- Israa H. Mahmoud
- Vittorio Negretto
- Daniele Santucci
- Maram Tawil
- Liane Thuvander
- International Union of Architects
- Studenten
Event partner
- Politecnico di Milano (PoliMi)
- Università di Venezia (IUAV)
- Delft University of Technology
- Chalmers University of Technology
- Alexandria University
- German Jordanian University
- University of Pretoria
- Singapore University of Technology and Design
- International Union of Architects
Digital Archive
Bige Tunçer and Tan Zhi Sheng
Graphic, installation and experience design
PLAM Creative Studio
Motion Design
Francesco Ulian