The Bola Theater is presented as a light and modular sphere, projected as a laboratory of identities, in which a poetic and utopian dimension is assumed that questions the notion of growth.
The proposal can be interpreted both as a place for fortune-telling and as a disco ball that brings sound, space and the body into play. It will host different workshops-residences-occupations that will stage a plurality of voices and stories.
The pavilion appears as a theatre open to a world with its globalized challenges. It acts as an echo chamber within which current questions about the fragility of the planet, our colonial heritage, and our ways of presenting identity and gender resonate, suggesting a new approach to current crises, through questioning, letting go, the search for alternatives and imagination.
Ball Theater, model. Image courtesy of Muoto + Georgi Stanishev et Clémence La Sagna.
"The Ball Theater is a hemispherical theatre built inside the French Pavilion, like a pavilion within a pavilion. It responds to the general theme of the biennial «The Laboratory of the Future» defined by Lesley Lokko, given that the theatre is in essence a laboratory of identities, places and imaginations. It is a device that allows us to project ourselves into another place and into the future.
Therefore, the curators are committed here to a built architecture capable of offering visitors an experience that is spatial, aesthetic and sound at the same time. Because, according to Lesley Lokko, the role of architecture is no longer to represent or represent itself as an image. It must be real, tangible and concrete to become the place where life, society and the future are experienced! We must no longer avoid architecture, we must make it and experience it. You no longer have to look back, as most exhibitions do, but look ahead. You have to write the sequel."
Ball Theater, model. Image courtesy of Muoto + Georgi Stanishev et Clémence La Sagna.
