'before the future': ukraine recalls fortifications in this green hideout

the pavilion of ukraine presents ‘before the future’

For the first time in almost a decade, Ukraine has officially opened its own Pavilion, ‘Before the Future’, at the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. Curated by Oleksii Petrov, Iryna Miroshnykova, and Borys Filonenko, the program presents to the public two spaces — the Pavilion in the Sale d’Armi, Arsenale, and an installation in the Spazio Esedra, Giardini, which formally quote unusual structures that, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, have become emblematic of feelings of safety for Ukrainian society. These spaces provide a forum for a dynamic public program bringing together more than thirty Ukrainian architects, artists, and specialists from numerous fields to work with crucial questions connected both to the Ukrainian context and to the Biennale Architettura 2023’s main central concept — the Laboratory of the Future.

Ukraine joins the Biennale with ‘Before the Future’ | all images © Oleksandr Kurmaz

‘The Pavilion of Ukraine proposes to draw our attention not just to the future, but also to the conditions of the past and present that provide the safety necessary for the construction of the future. The name of Ukraine’s Pavilion is a response to the general theme of this year’s edition because the future cannot be imagined without Ukraine. We live with the concept of ‘life after victory’ and contribute to the image of this future every day. For the world, Ukraine has become a new and powerful participant in the common life, transforming the image of the future in Europe and the world,’ writes the curatorial team.

Iryna Miroshnykova and Oleksii Petrov, from the Kyiv-based architectural office ФОРМА, have joined forces with Borys Filonenko, independent curator, art critic, and editor-in-chief of IST Publishing, to bring ‘Before the Future’ to life. All three curators also contributed to last year’s Pavilion theme, ‘Fountain of Exhaustion. Aqua Alta’, an exhibition by artist Pavlo Makov at the 59th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia.

earthworks installation in the Spazio Esedra, Giardini

drawing on ‘new comfort’ from a full-scale war

The installation at the Arsenale finds the typically lofty hall transformed into a dark, low-ceiling space that enfolds the viewer in the safety of a closed sky and thick walls — physical barriers to harm. The structure manifests what the Pavilion team refers to as a ‘new comfort’, where claustrophobic, windowless, or even previously abandoned spaces can become vital sites for incubating plans for survival and hope for the future.

‘More than a year of living in a full-scale war has completely changed our perception of space. All objects around us are automatically perceived as a potential threat or protection. During the war, when we are in an open area, we always look up at the sky and try to find a landscape that can protect us. For more than a year now, our sleep has been interrupted every 4 hours and then we have two options for protection, to gather all important things and go to a bomb shelter or stay at home try to press against the inner wall in corridor by the rule of ‘two walls’. Without daylight, between massive walls and under a solid ceiling, we are used to teaching our children, talking, singing, rejoicing, uniting and thinking about the future,’ comments Oleksii Petrov.

the mounds become a natural ‘hideout’ for visitors of the Biennale

evoking 10th-century fortifications with a natural ‘hideout’

In the Giardini, an earthworks installation under the open sky focuses similarly on the perceptual transformations in Ukraine regarding formerly overlooked elements of the built and natural environments. The intervention draws on the form of the Serpent’s Wall, a network of 10th-century fortifications in Kyiv that time has weathered into simple mounds and hills snaking through rewilded local landscapes. Once largely forgotten by contemporary residents of Kyiv, the buried functions of these mounds were reactivated during the first days of the full-scale Russian invasion, slowing the invading army’s advance toward the capital.

These old fortifications, omnipresent also in Venice and in all Europe, transform into contemporary safeguards ready to protect the cities as they did centuries ago. The landmark, recreated in Giardini for the Biennale, quickly became popular among visitors, offering a natural ‘hideout’ and leisurely spot to eat, socialize, and rest.

recalling simple mounds and hills snaking through rewilded local landscapes

In these spaces, at different times during the Biennale Architettura 2023, representatives of the Ukrainian cultural community will tell stories from inside their paradoxical context, sharing their experiences with the whole world. ‘Future is a problematic concept. It needs rethinking and reassembling. Future-oriented imagination was a relict and rather dangerous mindset from the previous centuries. <…> But after the war intervenes in our everyday life, the concept of the future is no longer old-fashioned. Today Ukrainian resistance offers, with its intrinsic complication, new and various concepts of the future, whose forms are outlined by the daily deeds of all involved,’ reflects Borys Filonenko.

the intervention draws on a network of 10th-century fortifications in Kyiv