'The Swamp School'. Preview Pavilion of Lithuania for the XVI Biennale Architettura di Venezia 2018

Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas, are artists, educators, and co-founders of the Urbonas Studio, an interdisciplinary research practice that facilitates exchange amongst diverse nodes of knowledge production and artistic practice in pursuit of projects that transform civic spaces and collective imaginaries. The Urbonas’ work has been exhibited at the São Paulo, Berlin, Moscow, Lyon, Gwangju Biennales; Folkestone Triennale; the Manifesta and Documenta exhibitions; in solo shows at the Lithuanian Pavilion in the 52nd International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia (2007) and the MACBA in Barcelona (2008) among others. Gediminas co-edited the volume Public Space? Lost and Found (MIT Press 2017), an examination of the complex inter-relations between the creation and uses of public space and the roles that public art plays therein. Urbonas are currently working on Zooetics – a research project that explores the potential to connect with the noethics and poetics of non-human life in the context of the planetary ecological imbalance. Gediminas is Associate Professor at the MIT Program in Art, Culture and Technology in the School of Architecture and Planning. Nomeda is a MIT research affiliate and PhD researcher at the NTNU, Norway.

Pippo Ciorra, is an architect, critic and professor, member of the editorial board of Casabella (1996-2012), and author of many essays and publications. In 2011 he published an overview of the conditions of architecture in Italy, Senza architettura. Le ragioni per una crisi (Laterza). He has published monographic studies on Ludovico Quaroni (Electa, 1989), Peter Eisenman (Electa, 1993), and on museums, cities, photography and contemporary Italian architecture. Ciorra teaches design and theory at SAAD (University of Camerino) and is the director of the international PhD program Villard d’Honnecourt (IUAV). He has curated and designed exhibitions in Italy and abroad. Since 2009, Ciorra has been Senior Curator of MAXXI Architettura in Rome. His major exhibitions include “Re-cycle,” “Energy,” and “Food,” as well as “Small Utopias,” a traveling show on ten Italian architects. He curates the Italian branch of YAP, the MoMA PS1 international program for young architects.