This year, the
Indonesian Pavilion at
the Venice Architecture Biennial 2018 will present
Sunyata: The Poetics of Emptiness. It is an interpretation of 'FreeSpace', the main theme established by Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara. The emptiness here is understood as an active entity; a singularity that functions as a prominent agency in life and, at the same time, as a vacuum that demands to be conquered. This conquest is expressed in several ritualizations.
Void is a concept strongly rooted in
Indonesian architecture. The elaboration of this concept is dispersed in several ethnic groups, with different implementations. Although it is always observed that it establishes the tacit order in a particular space and time, the understanding is, nevertheless, always in the same tone.
Geometry is the
primitive instrument of ritualization of man that triumphs over emptiness, establishing the cosmos over chaos. It is the device of marking the constitution in space; making the beginning of meaning through housing. At this point, architecture manifests itself as an instrument of liberation of chaotic space.
The space becomes Places.
Sunyata or the concept of Void place the dialogue between the human being and space as the nucleus of the architectural manifestation. It is an allegory that presents the human being as the main protagonist in this conquest of space: as the main space agency. Sunyata's design
aims to demonstrate ritualization through the initiation of a tactile provocation between the senses of man and space.
In addition to the exhibition that aims to establish a journey evoking the present and the manifestation of Sunyata in various places and (perhaps) the time; from the past to the contemporary in the vocabulary of Indonesian architecture.
This project argues that the
concept of Void that has been practiced in Indonesia is the approach to liberate the spatial experience and tactility of ocular centrism and the suppression of materiality; a 'FreeSpace' for interpretation and imagination. Therefore,
Sunyata is an experimental project that aims to provoke new possibilities in the understanding of architecture in Indonesia.
He also intends to critique a form, materiality and ornament approach in the understanding of vernacular architecture in Indonesia. By emphasizing the very core of the volumetric spatial order instead of elementals, this project aims to impose a new perspective on how future architecture in Indonesia can be.
This is the second time that Indonesia will participate in the
Venice Architecture Biennial after the first in 2014. Commissioned by the
Creative Agency of Indonesia and the Institute of Architects of Indonesia; The curatorial team of 6 people comes from diverse backgrounds in the field of architecture: professional, theoretical and technology specialist. The Pavilion, which
will be completely made of paper, will form a neutral space that will use many connections and consistencies as data that unites those Void places.
Through the metaphorical recreation of a new space with similar qualities, the pavilion builds links between places and times, between Tamansari and Venice, the Tsunami Museum and Arsenale, and many other precedents that have been compiled in Indonesia.
This is an experiential project; an interaction of scale and tactility that will be the main device to interact between the exhibition and the public.
