The 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, which opened a couple of weeks ago, has an undeniable energy, optimism and ambition about it. Geographically, and geopolitically, its gaze is turned towards Africa and African diaspora communities.
And, by the same token, away from an archaic and exclusionary Europe and West associated with the older white male (st)architect, a West that appears to be ever more in crisis, economically, politically, but also in terms of its place in the world.
This is a welcome shift and one whose importance can't be overstated. In the six-part main exhibition, The Laboratory of the Future, curated by Ghanaian-Scottish academic, educator and novelist Lesley Lokko and set in the imposing and beautifully restored complex of Venice’s historic shipyards, the focus is on the social and ecological themes of decarbonisation and decolonisation.
That is to say, ways of building and living that exploit people and nature less; that are less extractive; or that simply hark back to local and ancient knowledge and ways of doing and making things.
The subtext is, of course, terrible and violent histories of racism, brutality, inequality and appropriation of resources and wealth from other communities – yet the tone is intentionally forward-looking and proactive.
A soft blue light and a caption on the wall as you enter the first room of the Corderie, the former rope-making workshops in the Arsenale, sets the scene.
The Blue Hour, Lokko writes, is that “moment between dream and awakening” that is “also considered a moment of hope”. And it’s in that moment of hope that the intent of this exhibition is located.
Africa is, after all, the world’s youngest continent and the average age in this section is, fittingly, 43 (the youngest participant is 24). The gender balance is 50/50, half of the participants are from Africa or the African diaspora and nearly half are from practices with five people or less.
On a different note, this was also the year reuse, recycling and light touch went mainstream, with many pavilions and participants opting to repurpose materials from previous shows, source things hyper-locally or keep things low-key and light touch.
The German pavilion went one step further and transformed itself into a monumental warehouse and workshop for materials recovered from 40 national pavilions and installations at last year’s Art Biennale. These have been collated and will be reused throughout the year to repair or renovate various public spaces and structures around the city.
There was very little real architecture at this Architecture Biennale, which some critics remarked on but didn’t bother me much. Partly this was because smaller practices meant smaller budgets. This was the year of the practitioner (a broader term picked by Lokko due to the “rich, complex conditions of both Africa and a rapidly hybridising world”), those that had been under-represented at previous biennales.
Alongside architects, there were artists, performers, activists and even poets, such as British poet Rhael ‘LionHeart’ Cape, who greets visitors to the Arsenale with a brilliant spoken-word video. One of the most emblematic – and beautiful – pieces in the main exhibition was created, for example, by Congolese photographer and artist Sammy Baloji in collaboration with Brazilian-Paraguayan architect Gloria Cabral and art historian Cecile Fromont.
An undulating tapestry made of construction debris, Venetian glass and mining waste from the Democratic Republic of Congo’s former colonial capital, Brussels, it shines a light on toxic colonial legacies and enclaves of extraction in Brazil and in the DRC.
Another highlight in the Arsenale was an immersive research-based installation called Xholobeni Yards by Andres Jaque’s Office for Political Innovation, who worked in collaboration with a group of activists from Xholobeni in South Africa.
It explored our insatiable need for shininess in architecture in the Global North, through the example of the Hudson Yards megaproject in Manhattan. This project’s glossiness, I discovered, is only possible thanks to titanium coatings.
After the titanium is removed from the sand in places like Xholobeni on the east coast of South Africa, the sand becomes so light and volatile that farming in these areas becomes impossible, human health is adversely affected and communities are forced to move. This is transnational extractivism at its worst and represents a continuation of the ruthless western colonialism of the 19th and 20th centuries.
An exhibition this ambitious and put together in such a short time frame is bound to be patchy in parts. And, unsurprisingly, it was, more in terms of presentation than content.
Some of the exhibits in the Arsenale suffered from inadequate or unclear exhibition captions. Other times I wondered why certain works had been grouped together, or deemed the language of the interpretive texts to be so academic as to be opaque.
Non-specialists will surely take one glance at that jargon and run a mile. Bizarrely there were some important wall texts that were so low contrast in terms of font colour, they were impossible to read. Above all, my main gripe would be that it is not possible to digest a show with so much content and research in two days as the press preview dictates. By the same token, you could argue that few visitors will spend more than a day or two at the biennale.
Finally, some of the national pavilions also engaged with the topic of decolonisation in interesting and layered ways. The Ireland pavilion, for instance, was a personal highlight. An exploration into the life and material heritage of three of Ireland’s most remote islands, its exhibition texts and captions were all in Gaelic and Italian (but not in English).
Yes, it was a provocation, the curators readily admitted, but their point was a valid and nuanced one. Gaelic is the ancient language of Ireland and has been largely lost to English due to colonisation they explained, and many of its most interesting words – and therefore ideas and culture – are also being forgotten.
By reappropriating its indigenous language the pavilion also becomes a statement about shifting geopolitical situations and new world orders. After all, English was not always the global lingua franca, and perhaps won’t be in the future. This is quietly subversive stuff and I loved it.
Over at the Giardini site, the Austrian pavilion too explored colonisation, but from a spatial point of view, namely the growing colonisation of public space in the city of Venice by the biennale (the walled gardens where the international art show is located, for instance, used to be public).
The curators planned to give more than half of the pavilion to the Venetian public and create an access route across the border wall. The biennale authorities rejected the idea for now but eventually, they will have to deal with the charges of exclusion and privatisation of public space that have been levelled at them for years now and look at their own practices and operations.
That future might be yet to come, but, as a result of this exhibition, it might be that little bit closer.
TERMINAL HIGH ALTITUDE AREA DEFENCE (THAAD)
What is THAAD?
It is considered to be the US's most superior missile defence system.
Production:
It was created in 2008.
Speed:
THAAD missiles can travel at over Mach 8, so fast that it is hypersonic.
Abilities:
THAAD is designed to take out ballistic missiles as they are on their downward trajectory towards their target, otherwise known as the "terminal phase".
Purpose:
To protect high-value strategic sites, such as airfields or population centres.
Range:
THAAD can target projectiles inside and outside the Earth's atmosphere, at an altitude of 150 kilometres above the Earth's surface.
Creators:
Lockheed Martin was originally granted the contract to develop the system in 1992. Defence company Raytheon sub-contracts to develop other major parts of the system, such as ground-based radar.
UAE and THAAD:
In 2011, the UAE became the first country outside of the US to buy two THAAD missile defence systems. It then stationed them in 2016, becoming the first Gulf country to do so.
TO A LAND UNKNOWN
Director: Mahdi Fleifel
Starring: Mahmoud Bakri, Aram Sabbah, Mohammad Alsurafa
Rating: 4.5/5
Family reunited
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe was born and raised in Tehran and studied English literature before working as a translator in the relief effort for the Japanese International Co-operation Agency in 2003.
She moved to the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies before moving to the World Health Organisation as a communications officer.
She came to the UK in 2007 after securing a scholarship at London Metropolitan University to study a master's in communication management and met her future husband through mutual friends a month later.
The couple were married in August 2009 in Winchester and their daughter was born in June 2014.
She was held in her native country a year later.
GAC GS8 Specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4cyl turbo
Power: 248hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 400Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 8-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 9.1L/100km
On sale: Now
Price: From Dh149,900
SHAITTAN
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Killing of Qassem Suleimani
More from Neighbourhood Watch:
Lowest Test scores
26 - New Zealand v England at Auckland, March 1955
30 - South Africa v England at Port Elizabeth, Feb 1896
30 - South Africa v England at Birmingham, June 1924
35 - South Africa v England at Cape Town, April 1899
36 - South Africa v Australia at Melbourne, Feb. 1932
36 - Australia v England at Birmingham, May 1902
36 - India v Australia at Adelaide, Dec. 2020
38 - Ireland v England at Lord's, July 2019
42 - New Zealand v Australia in Wellington, March 1946
42 - Australia v England in Sydney, Feb. 1888
THE SPECS
Engine: 6.75-litre twin-turbocharged V12 petrol engine
Power: 420kW
Torque: 780Nm
Transmission: 8-speed automatic
Price: From Dh1,350,000
On sale: Available for preorder now
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
Pharaoh's curse
British aristocrat Lord Carnarvon, who funded the expedition to find the Tutankhamun tomb, died in a Cairo hotel four months after the crypt was opened.
He had been in poor health for many years after a car crash, and a mosquito bite made worse by a shaving cut led to blood poisoning and pneumonia.
Reports at the time said Lord Carnarvon suffered from “pain as the inflammation affected the nasal passages and eyes”.
Decades later, scientists contended he had died of aspergillosis after inhaling spores of the fungus aspergillus in the tomb, which can lie dormant for months. The fact several others who entered were also found dead withiin a short time led to the myth of the curse.
THE SIXTH SENSE
Starring: Bruce Willis, Toni Collette, Hayley Joel Osment
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Rating: 5/5
The specs: Fenyr SuperSport
Price, base: Dh5.1 million
Engine: 3.8-litre twin-turbo flat-six
Transmission: Seven-speed automatic
Power: 800hp @ 7,100pm
Torque: 980Nm @ 4,000rpm
Fuel economy, combined: 13.5L / 100km
Children who witnessed blood bath want to help others
Aged just 11, Khulood Al Najjar’s daughter, Nora, bravely attempted to fight off Philip Spence. Her finger was injured when she put her hand in between the claw hammer and her mother’s head.
As a vital witness, she was forced to relive the ordeal by police who needed to identify the attacker and ensure he was found guilty.
Now aged 16, Nora has decided she wants to dedicate her career to helping other victims of crime.
“It was very horrible for her. She saw her mum, dying, just next to her eyes. But now she just wants to go forward,” said Khulood, speaking about how her eldest daughter was dealing with the trauma of the incident five years ago. “She is saying, 'mama, I want to be a lawyer, I want to help people achieve justice'.”
Khulood’s youngest daughter, Fatima, was seven at the time of the attack and attempted to help paramedics responding to the incident.
“Now she wants to be a maxillofacial doctor,” Khulood said. “She said to me ‘it is because a maxillofacial doctor returned your face, mama’. Now she wants to help people see themselves in the mirror again.”
Khulood’s son, Saeed, was nine in 2014 and slept through the attack. While he did not witness the trauma, this made it more difficult for him to understand what had happened. He has ambitions to become an engineer.
Multitasking pays off for money goals
Tackling money goals one at a time cost financial literacy expert Barbara O'Neill at least $1 million.
That's how much Ms O'Neill, a distinguished professor at Rutgers University in the US, figures she lost by starting saving for retirement only after she had created an emergency fund, bought a car with cash and purchased a home.
"I tell students that eventually, 30 years later, I hit the million-dollar mark, but I could've had $2 million," Ms O'Neill says.
Too often, financial experts say, people want to attack their money goals one at a time: "As soon as I pay off my credit card debt, then I'll start saving for a home," or, "As soon as I pay off my student loan debt, then I'll start saving for retirement"."
People do not realise how costly the words "as soon as" can be. Paying off debt is a worthy goal, but it should not come at the expense of other goals, particularly saving for retirement. The sooner money is contributed, the longer it can benefit from compounded returns. Compounded returns are when your investment gains earn their own gains, which can dramatically increase your balances over time.
"By putting off saving for the future, you are really inhibiting yourself from benefiting from that wonderful magic," says Kimberly Zimmerman Rand , an accredited financial counsellor and principal at Dragonfly Financial Solutions in Boston. "If you can start saving today ... you are going to have a lot more five years from now than if you decide to pay off debt for three years and start saving in year four."
COMPANY PROFILE
● Company: Bidzi
● Started: 2024
● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid
● Based: Dubai, UAE
● Industry: M&A
● Funding size: Bootstrapped
● No of employees: Nine
Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
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The specs
Engine: 2.0-litre 4-cyl turbo
Power: 201hp at 5,200rpm
Torque: 320Nm at 1,750-4,000rpm
Transmission: 6-speed auto
Fuel consumption: 8.7L/100km
Price: Dh133,900
On sale: now
If you go
The flights
Emirates and Etihad fly direct to Nairobi, with fares starting from Dh1,695. The resort can be reached from Nairobi via a 35-minute flight from Wilson Airport or Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, or by road, which takes at least three hours.
The rooms
Rooms at Fairmont Mount Kenya range from Dh1,870 per night for a deluxe room to Dh11,000 per night for the William Holden Cottage.
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
Tips to stay safe during hot weather
- Stay hydrated: Drink plenty of fluids, especially water. Avoid alcohol and caffeine, which can increase dehydration.
- Seek cool environments: Use air conditioning, fans, or visit community spaces with climate control.
- Limit outdoor activities: Avoid strenuous activity during peak heat. If outside, seek shade and wear a wide-brimmed hat.
- Dress appropriately: Wear lightweight, loose and light-coloured clothing to facilitate heat loss.
- Check on vulnerable people: Regularly check in on elderly neighbours, young children and those with health conditions.
- Home adaptations: Use blinds or curtains to block sunlight, avoid using ovens or stoves, and ventilate living spaces during cooler hours.
- Recognise heat illness: Learn the signs of heat exhaustion and heat stroke (dizziness, confusion, rapid pulse, nausea), and seek medical attention if symptoms occur.
COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Haltia.ai%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202023%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECo-founders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Arto%20Bendiken%20and%20Talal%20Thabet%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%2C%20UAE%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20AI%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2041%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20About%20%241.7%20million%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Self%2C%20family%20and%20friends%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Benefits of first-time home buyers' scheme
- Priority access to new homes from participating developers
- Discounts on sales price of off-plan units
- Flexible payment plans from developers
- Mortgages with better interest rates, faster approval times and reduced fees
- DLD registration fee can be paid through banks or credit cards at zero interest rates
Ticket prices
- Golden circle - Dh995
- Floor Standing - Dh495
- Lower Bowl Platinum - Dh95
- Lower Bowl premium - Dh795
- Lower Bowl Plus - Dh695
- Lower Bowl Standard- Dh595
- Upper Bowl Premium - Dh395
- Upper Bowl standard - Dh295
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The%20specs
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