Gabriela Hearst melds classic design with concern for the planet creating her new collection. Cover picture by Elli Ioannou for DAM MODA.
Chloé's Creative Director,
Gabriela Hearst, understands the power of pieces that are crafted to last and with her latest Spring 2024 collection, she celebrates sustainability in the fashion industry, craftsmanship, and a commitment to leaving a positive impact on the planet, reports Antonio Visconti
Hearst creates stylish and elegant
collections while being aware of
how they affect the environment.
The Spring 2024 collection at Chloé embraces notions of
consciousness, circularity, and timelessness. These themes are interwoven
throughout the aesthetic and technical aspects of the designs, creating a
harmonious balance between style and sustainability.
Hearst emphasizes that
"reducing the Maison's carbon footprint and prioritizing materials that
enable this are of the highest priority, without compromising on design and
desirability."
"In the ever-rapidly moving world, I find solace in timeless design – pieces that are long-lasting in their execution and made to be atemporal with the hope of being passed down from one generation to the next," Hearst says. Her vision is clear: to create garments that not only captivate with their beauty but also embody a commitment to environmental responsibility.
Taking a closer look at the collection, there is a
tapestry of eco-conscious choices and exquisite craftsmanship. For instance, one look features denim trousers made almost entirely from upcycled cotton, a
shirt cut from deadstock cotton, and sunglasses crafted from recycled acetate.
It's a testament to the power of putting the environment first without
sacrificing beauty or elegance. Hearst remarks: "When I see look six, for
instance, it gives me great pleasure to know that the decision to put the
environment first didn't affect the beauty of the design but empowered
it."
The collection delves into the natural world, expressing
both its resilience and vulnerability through design choices. A
turtleneck sweater in recycled cashmere combines with jeans made
from recycled cotton and hemp denim, developed exclusively with
Adriano Goldschmied. The incorporation of botanical motif guipure lace inserts
in a lower-impact wool rib knit further accentuates the connection to nature.
Gabriela Hearst aims to create garments that not only captivate with their beauty but also embody a commitment to environmental responsibility.
All rugged up in shearling,
denim and suede.
But sustainability doesn't stop at materials; it extends to
the very essence of the garments. Some pieces cleverly play with appearances,
inviting you to experience their texture.
A light indigo jacket with a
shearling collar and matching flared trousers may seem like denim or corduroy
at first glance, but they are actually soft suede.
A lace crew-neck sweater and
skirt, too, deceive the eye, revealing a technical knit of contrasting matte
cashmere and lustrous silk, adding depth and a feminine fluidity to the designs.
Chloé explores classic garments and heritage
textiles, infusing them with a modern touch. The Maison introduces a bespoke
cotton-wool tweed with multicolor mouliné threads, used for a trench coat and
new renditions of the Penelope shoulder bag.
A bow motif adorns bags, jewellery, shoes,
and dresses. The marriage of jewellery-inspired embellishments with
ready-to-wear techniques results in innovative designs, such as chains
whip-stitched onto the lapels of jackets and overcoats or transformed into
buttons on a cape coat.
Gabriela Hearst's interest in fashion history is evident
in her exploration of the Chloé Archive. Inspired by the work of Karl
Lagerfeld, who spent 25 years designing for the Maison, she distilled his
vision into 28 looks for the Met Costume Institute exhibition 'Karl Lagerfeld:
A Line of Beauty.'
"I find solace in timeless design ~ pieces that are long-lasting and made to be atemporal with the hope of being passed down from one generation to the next."
Fluid femininity created with
wool knit and a botancial guipure
lace insert,
At this year's Met Gala, she paid homage to Lagerfeld by
creating custom red-carpet creations, including a column dress for actress
Maude Apatow.
The Spring 2024 festive capsule draws inspiration from
Lagerfeld's iconic designs, featuring wool crepe coats, dresses, bags,
jewellery, and footwear adorned with arrow-shaped crystal embellishments.
Chloé's commitment to sustainability goes beyond the runway.
The Maison incorporates eco-friendly materials into its products, such as
recycled cotton, linen, acetate, and bio-based nylon.
The Marcie bag, Penelope
bag, Nama sneaker, and eyewear ranges all showcase the brand's dedication to a
more conscious and responsible approach to fashion.
As the world of fashion continues to evolve, Chloé stands as
an example of how good design and sustainability can coexist
harmoniously.
Scroll down to see more highlights from Gabriela Hearst's Spring 2024 Collection
George Eliot’s Middlemarch: egoism, moral stupidity, and the complex web of life
Rufus Sewell as Will Ladislaw and Juliet Aubrey as Dorothea Brooke in the BBC adaptation of Middlemarch (1994)
IMDBHelen Groth, UNSW Sydney
In our Guide to the Classics series, experts explain key works of literature.
Middlemarch (1872) is a slow read and a deeply immersive one.
George Eliot – the pen name of Mary Ann Evans (1819-1880) – built rich and complex fictional worlds that she hoped would allow readers to be “better able to imagine and to feel the pains and joys of those who differ from themselves in everything but the broad fact of being struggling, erring human creatures”.
This avowedly humanist world-building would come to be called realism. Middlemarch is often cited as a template of that now familiar mode.
The novel’s subtitle – “A Study of Provincial Life” – suggests a serious project guided by ethical and scientific principles. This aim was a far remove from the conventional marriage plots and melodramatic style of “silly lady novelists”, as Eliot snarkily called them. She offered her readers multiple perspectives and ways to study the lives of others.
These are elucidated in rhetorically astonishing passages and justly famous metaphors. One of the better known is the pier glass, which the narrator details in one of the novel’s many transitions from third- to first-person:
An eminent philosopher among my friends, who can dignify your ugly furniture by lifting it into the serene light of science, has shown me this pregnant little fact. Your pier-glass or extensive surface of polished steel made to be rubbed by a housemaid, will be minutely and multitudinously scratched in all directions; but place now against it a lighted candle as a centre of illumination, and lo! The scratches will seem to arrange themselves in a fine series of concentric circles round that little sun. It is demonstrable that the scratches are going everywhere impartially, and it is only your candle which produces the flattering illusion of a concentric arrangement, its light falling with an exclusive optical selection. These things are a parable. The scratches are events, and the candle is the egoism of any person now absent …
Eliot visualises the illusory coherence generated by egoism. Readers might apply this understanding to their own selective vision, as well as to the characters that fill the pages of Middlemarch.
Moving fluently from one intricate psychological characterisation to another, Eliot illuminates her characters’ minds, while subtly reminding us of the mediated nature of that access. As readers, we are never entirely sure what her characters see and what the narrator sees on their behalf. In the process, we are invited to think about the complex nature of character, memory, love, friendship, work, greed, hypocrisy, discovery, community and so much more.
The fabric of life
Portrait of George Eliot – Samuel Laurence (1860).Public domain
Middlemarch is specific and local rather than universal in scope. It is set in a small English village called Middlemarch in the 1830s, a period of heated political debate and unrest. The noisy unevenness of progress is ever-present. Machine breaking (anti-industrialism), vociferous crowds and the shifting moods of popular opinion unsettle the lives of Middlemarch’s citizens.
Allusions to historical events – such as the passage of the 1832 Reform Bill (which enfranchised many previously disenfranchised voters) and major developments in medical science – contribute to the novel’s complex organisation, in which affinity and community are deeply felt and sometimes oppressive.
This organisation is more akin to the interwoven threads of a piece of intricately patterned fabric or the neural networks of the human body than a spider’s web. In another aside, Eliot’s narrator explicitly differentiates the web-like structure of Middlemarch from the freewheeling and expansive storytelling of 18th-century precursors, such as Henry Fielding’s picaresque novel Tom Jones:
We belated historians must not linger after [Fielding’s] example: and if we did so, it is probable that our chat would be thin and eager, as if delivered from a camp-stool in a parrot-house. I at least have so much to do in unravelling certain human lots, and seeing how they were woven and interwoven, that all the light I can command must be concentrated on this particular web, and not dispersed over that tempting range of relevancies called the universe.
Eliot’s process of “unravelling” her characters invites the reader to examine and compare, as if through a microscope, their resemblances and divergences. Her characters may not know one another, but the threads of their lives are woven together by her deft use of analogy and metaphor. Transitions from one part of the web to another are often framed as seemingly casual reminders that the lives of other characters have been going on while our focus has been elsewhere.
Juliet Aubrey as Dorothea Brooke in the 1994 BBC adaptation of Middlemarch.Image: IMDB
Inconvenient indefiniteness
Henry James complained that “Middlemarch is too often an echo of Messrs. Darwin and Huxley”.
It may be hard for us to hear these echoes, but it would have been impossible for 19th century readers not to do so. Eliot had read Darwin’s The Origin of the Species when it first appeared in late 1859. By the 1870s, as Gillian Beer has influentially argued, Darwin’s theories informed both the structure and the themes of her novels, but Eliot disagreed with Darwin’s “idea of the single progenitor”.
To quote Beer: “This emphasis on plurality, rather than upon singleness, is crucial to the developing argument of Middlemarch.”
Eliot’s language is thus intentionally resonant and allusive, but rather than echoing the “maxims” of others, Middlemarch models ways of reading between different knowledge and belief systems. The fictional design of Middlemarch reveals the absence of one absolute authority or single interpretation of the origin or meaning of life. Characters who misguidedly pursue such an aim – such as the scholar Casaubon, with his “Key to All Mythologies” – inevitably find themselves diverted and confronted by the limits of their individual capacities and vision.
Charles Darwin (1869) – Julia Margaret Cameron.Public domain
The emphasis on variety, relation and entanglement begins with the novel’s prelude, in which Eliot’s narrator reflects on the “inconvenient indefiniteness” of a woman’s lot as something that frustrates “scientific certitude”.
Dorothea Brooke, the novel’s heroine, exemplifies this indeterminacy and variety. She is ardent, ambitious and intelligent. She is also a terrible judge of potential husbands, a failing that is sympathetically detailed by Eliot’s omniscient narrator. Dorothea yearns for social purpose and a genius to serve. This leads her to become ensnared in a marriage to Casaubon, who reveals himself to be a controlling jealous pedant.
It is a cruel outcome, vividly animated by Eliot’s extraordinary prose. In chapter 20, to take one of many possible examples, we find Dorothea in Rome on her honeymoon. Agonised by the early signs that married life is not what she imagined, she finds the vast wreckage and epic ambition of Rome overwhelming. At this critical moment, Eliot undercuts the potential melodrama of her heroine’s “stifling depression”, insisting on the unexceptional nature of her plight in a startling aside. She begins by reflecting on the conventional nature of her heroine’s marital disappointments:
Some discouragement, some faintness of heart at the new real future which replaces the imaginary, is not unusual, and we do not expect people to be deeply moved by what is not unusual.
The subsequent sentences push further into this unbearable truth:
That element of tragedy which lies in the very fact of frequency, has not yet wrought itself into the coarse emotion of mankind; and perhaps our frames could hardly bear much of it. If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence. As it is, the quickest of us walk about well wadded with stupidity.
Dorothea Brooke and Will Ladislaw. Illustration from The Works of George Eliot (Jensen Society, 1910).Public domain
To be stupid, Eliot insists, is a common experience. Even the “quickest of us” are necessarily guilty of stupidity in our efforts to filter the confusing cacophony of “ordinary human life”.
In this sense, stupidity is not a permanent character trait, but a contingent avoidance of the incomprehensible scale of human existence. Shocked out of the youthful self-absorption that had allowed her to imagine her new husband as a wise and original intellect, Dorothea emerges from her “stupidity” to confront the disappointing reality that her husband possesses an “equivalent centre of self” and an equal proportion of “moral stupidity”.
Unlit transparency
When Dorothea returns from Rome to Middlemarch, nothing looks or sounds the same:
The ideas and hopes which were living in her mind when she first saw this room nearly three months before were present now only as memories: she judged them as we judge transient and departed things. All existence seemed to beat with a lower pulse than her own, and her religious faith was a solitary cry, the struggle out of a nightmare in which every object was withering and shrinking away from her. Each remembered thing in the room was disenchanted, was deadened as an unlit transparency …
Recalling both the pier glass and “the roar on the other side of silence”, the arresting metaphor of a microscope’s “unlit transparency” registers a profound shift in Dorothea’s point of view. It also serves a structural purpose, prompting the reader to recall another character synonymous with microscopes and disastrous marital choices, Dr Tertius Lydgate.
Dorothea and Lydgate are unknown to one another at this stage of the plot, but Eliot has already begun to weave the threads of their lives together through the connective force of metaphor and analogy.
Mary Garth and Fred Vincy. Illustration from The Works of George Eliot (Jensen Society, 1910).Public Domain
When Eliot began writing Middlemarch, she was planning to write two novels about two distinct webs of characters. One centred on Dorothea Brooke and the other on Tertius Lydgate.
Lydgate is a young ambitious doctor recently arrived in Middlemarch, having completed his medical studies in London, Edinburgh and Paris. Keen to reform the backward practices of Middlemarch’s medical profession by introducing the latest discoveries in the treatment of fever and other ailments, Lydgate’s arrogance and lack of sympathy lead to debt, accusations of criminality and thwarted ambition. He offends his peers, attracts the patronage of the hypocritical banker Nicholas Bulstrode, and marries the beautiful but superficial Rosamond Vincy, to name just a few of his many blunders.
Eliot’s sympathetic characterisation of Lydgate’s uneven mix of stupidity and brilliance mirrors the complex web of affinities and connections with which she surrounds Dorothea. In multiple remarkable passages, Eliot draws on recent discoveries in human pathology to illuminate Lydgate’s character “as a process and an unfolding”:
he longed to demonstrate the more intimate relations of living structure and help to define men’s thoughts more accurately after the true order. The work had not yet been done, but only prepared for those who knew how to use the preparation. What was the primitive tissue? In that way Lydgate put the question – not quite the way required by the waiting answer; but such missing of the right word befalls many seekers. And he counted on quiet intervals to be watchfully seized, for taking up the threads of investigation – on many hints to be won from diligent application, not only of the scalpel, but of the microscope, which research had begun to use again with new enthusiasm of reliance. Such was Lydgate’s plan for the future: to do good small work for Middlemarch, and great work for the world.
In a novel designed around multiple related yet distinct systems, rather than singular origins, Lydgate asks the wrong kind of question. The diligent study of “the primary webs or tissues” of the human body, like Darwin’s elaboration of the complex system of “all living and extinct forms”, moves at a very different pace to the brisk commerce and materialism that drives the ordinary folk of Middlemarch, whom he hopes to enlighten and save.
Here, the metaphor of the web takes on grimmer connotations, stifling ambition and coercing conformity. Lydgate is undone by his own failure to apply his “seeking” intellect to his interactions with his colleagues or his choice of a wife. Eliot’s darkly humorous description of his bitter struggles with Rosamond over money, social mobility and furniture invites readers to reflect on the characters’ mutual stupidity, while urging compassion and sympathy.
Microscopic portrayal
Eliot’s microscopic portrayal of the various ecosystems that surround Lydgate and Dorothea exemplifies another striking feature of the 19th-century realist novel: the tension between an intensive focus on the inner-life of a few privileged individuals and a democratising emphasis on the equal value of all characters. As Alex Woloch puts it:
The realist novel is infused with the sense that any character is a potential hero, but simultaneously enchanted with the individual, defined through his or her interior consciousness.
The cast of potential main characters in Middlemarch is extensive and richly drawn. It includes Lydgate’s aimless brother-in-law Fred Vincy, who loves the earnest truth-telling Mary Garth, and Caleb Garth, Mary’s hard-working father, who expertly guides the land management of the wealthy families of Middlemarch, including Dorothea’s uncle, Mr Brooke.
Eliot’s criticisms of the inadequacies of political and social reform in England are encapsulated in her heavily ironic characterisation of Mr Brooke’s political dilettantism and the frustrations of Will Ladislaw, whom Mr Brooke employs to give some substance to his campaign to win a seat in parliament.
Will’s annoyance with Mr Brooke’s short attention span is a great source of comedic material, but he serves a more romantic purpose in the novel’s main marriage plot. He becomes the ultimate love interest of Dorothea and the nemesis of Casaubon, who writes a malicious amendment to his will that disinherits Dorothea if she marries Will.
Critics have long remarked that Eliot failed to draw a convincing portrait of Will Ladislaw as a deserving lover of Dorothea. Henry James described him as “vague and impalpable to the end”. But Middlemarch is not a novel that celebrates unrealistic romantic ideals or exceptional cases. Eliot implicitly fends off criticisms of her ordinary heroine’s choice of partner in the last paragraphs of the novel:
she was spoken of to a younger generation as a fine girl who married a sickly clergyman, old enough to be her father, and in little more than a year after his death gave up her estate to marry his cousin – young enough to have been his son, with no property and not well-born. Those who had not seen anything of Dorothea usually observed that she could not have been “a nice woman”, else she would not have married either the one or the other.
By this stage of the novel, Eliot is banking on her readers’ investment in a model of love and life that conceives of a woman’s lot as complex and multi-faceted in ways that may not be immediately legible or transparent to those outside her “particular web”.
Despite her exceptional intellect and extensive capacity for sympathy, Dorothea must ultimately contend with the reality that there “is no creature whose inward being is so strong that it is not greatly determined by what lies outside it”.
This reality, the novel’s coda makes clear, is one that Middlemarch’s readers must accept too.
Helen Groth, Professor of Literary Studies, UNSW Sydney
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
Heidi Klum and husband Tom Kaulitz talking to journalists on the red (blue) carpet at the amfAR Gala in Cannes. Cover picture of Lais Ribeiro and all photographs by Elli Ioannou for DAM in France.
On a warm, summery evening high up in the hills above the French Riviera, the amfAR gala was getting underway at the historic Hôtel du Cap-Eden-Roc. Held on the last night of the Cannes Film Festival, stars of the screen, stage and runway, gathered for the event and succeeded in raising more than $17 million, writes Isabella Lancellotti. Photography by Elli Ioannou in France
Queen Latifah hosts the amfAR Gala
in Cannes.
The award-winning American rapper, actress and singer Queen Latifah, was the charismatic host of the amfAR Gala that included a dramatic live auction, fashion show, and performances by Gladys Knight, Adam Lambert, Bebe Rexha, and Halsey.
A constellation of stars dressed in black tie attended the event from Leonardo DiCaprio, Eva Longoria, James Marsden, and Rebel Wilson to Heidi Klum, Kate Beckinsale and Orlando Bloom.
The fashion, to rival the Met Gala, ran the gamut from completely sheer gowns with cutouts showing muscled abs to long, gossamer-fine couture capes over fluid, diaphanous column dresses,
Auctioning for a Cause
The enthusiasm of the guests was on full display as they actively participated in the live auction led by auctioneer, Simon de Pury. Bidding on one-of-a-kind luxury items and contemporary art, the auction showcased the commitment to supporting amfAR's mission.
The excitement reached new heights as Eva Longoria and James Marsden joined forces with de Pury to sell the exclusive Launch Edition DB12 Aston Martin, fetching a staggering 1.5 million euros. Another remarkable moment came with the sale of a breathtaking Damien Hirst portrait of Leonardo DiCaprio, adorned with signatures from both the artist and the acclaimed actor, which was acquired for an impressive 1.2 million euros.
Fashion as a Force for Good
A highlight of the gala was the Icons Collection fashion show, curated by supporter of amfAR, Carine Roitfeld. Introduced by Ashley Graham and designer Jeremy Scott, the show featured ensembles from fashion houses around the world. On the runway there were designs by Tom Ford, Moschino, Versace, Dior, Balmain, Chanel, Prada, Givenchy, Armani, YSL, Louis Vuitton, and many more. The models, including Natasha Poly, Helena Christensen, Caroline Trentini, and Alessandra Ambrosio, took to the catwalk wearing exquisite Chopard jewels.
Adam Lambert performed at the gala,
including his hit songs.
Unforgettable Performances
While the auction garnered excitement, the night's musical performances electrified the audience. The queen of soul, Gladys Knight, arrived on stage to sing her classics, "The Best Thing That Ever Happened to Me" and "Midnight Train to Georgia."
Adam Lambert, renowned for his stage presence, kept the energy soaring with heartfelt renditions of "Ordinary World" and a beautiful tribute to the late Tina Turner through "Who Wants to Live Forever." Bebe Rexha took the stage, delivering a sensational set that included her chart-topping hits "In the Name of Love" and "I'm Good (Blue)."
A Night to Remember
As the evening drew to a close, Queen Latifah returned to the stage to introduce the final act, Halsey. The talented singer-songwriter delivered a captivating performance, with renditions of her hit songs, including "Graveyard," "Bad at Love," "You Should Be Sad," and "Without Me." In raising over $17 million for amfAR's HIV/AIDS research programs, the amfAR Gala Cannes showed the effectiveness of philanthropy, and collaboration.
Scroll down to see the fashion highlights on the red carpet at the amfAR Gala in Cannes
Actor Rebel Wilson wears an emerald-green Oscar de la Renta dress, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap
d'Antibes, France.
Model Cindy Bruna in a sleek, black sequined gown by David Koma, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap
d'Antibes, France.
Bebe Rexha wears a dramatic Faraz Manan gown, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap
d'Antibes, France.
Italian tennis player Matteo Berrettini in a stylish, double-breasted Boss suit at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap
d'Antibes, France.
Belgian model Rose Bertram wearing a minimal Monot outfit, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap d'Antibes, France.
Model Helena Christensen in a shell pink Dior haute couture gown at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap d'Antibes, France.
Fashion iconoclast Daphne Guiness in a striking black ensemble at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap d'Antibes, France.
Emma Thynn, Marchioness of Bath, wears a diaphanous Tony Ward couture embroidered gown, at the amfAR Cannes Gala at Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap d'Antibes, France.
Model Coco Rocha wears a sculptural Gaurav Gupta haute couture gown at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap d'Antibes, France.
Model Isabeli Fontana in theatrical Mugler outfit at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap d'Antibes, France.
American model Lori Harvey in a brilliant red, cut-out LaQuan Smith gown, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap d'Antibes, France.
Singer and actor Teyana Taylor in a Monot concoction showing her chiseled abs, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap d'Antibes, France.
Model Alton Mason in a black tuxedo open to his waist, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap d'Antibes, France.
Model Bianca Balti in a vivid Dolce & Gabbana gown, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap d'Antibes, France.
Actor Eva Longoria in a transparent, figure-hugging gown by Ashi Studio, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap d'Antibes, France.
Portuguese model Sara Sampaio in a sea green Zuhair Murad dress, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap d'Antibes, France.
Czech model Petra Nemcova wears British couturier Jennifer Claire's bright red dress, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap
d'Antibes, France.
Fashion designers Dean and Dan Caten in classic, elegant tuxedos, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap
d'Antibes, France.
Originally from Capo Verde, model Leila Depina, wearing an outfit inspired by Naomi Cambell's 1998 barely-there outfit, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap
d'Antibes, France.
Georgia Fowler wears a draped gown and Surrealist gold necklace by Schiaparelli, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap
d'Antibes, France.
Alessandra Ambrosio and Matheus Mazzafera. at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap
d'Antibes, France.
American actor James Marsden, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap
d'Antibes, France.
Elsa Hosk wearing her own brand Helsa, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap
d'Antibes, France.
Heidi Klum and Tom Kaulitz, at the amfAR Cannes Gala, Hotel du Cap-Eden-Roc, Cap
d'Antibes, France.
African Architects Challenge Venice Exhibition to Decolonise and Start New Conversations
Ghanian-born curator of the biennale Lesley Lokko. Jacobo Salvi/La Biennale di Venezia
By Tomà Berlanda, Professor of Architecture, University of Cape Town
Presented since 1979, the Venice Architecture Biennale (La Biennale di Venezia) is possibly the most influential architecture exhibition in the world. For the first time, this year’s edition is curated by an African architect, Lesley Lokko. She has ensured that a strong African presence is the central feature of the show. Indeed, the 2023 exhibition is part of an undeniable shift towards a more just representation in global architecture.
The biennale, a cultural institution established as early as 1895, is a manifestation of a world order established by European imperialism. It is an international platform for a network of powerful academic and professional groups, material producers, construction firms, developers and public authorities. They come together in Venice to show and discuss their work.
Visitors to the central exhibition, Force Majeure.Simone Padovani/Getty Images
The biennale relies heavily on private sponsors and numerous countries host their own pavilions in Venice. While an African curator has no influence over these pavilions, she has ample latitude to determine the shape of the main pavilion and its exhibitions, the Force Majeure and the Dangerous Liaisons sections.
As a professor of architecture with a scholarly focus on African cities and non-western architectural forms, I have been attending the preview week in Venice. I believe that the African presence at the event brings a much needed – and complicated – new perspective that needs to shape the future of the biennale.
Lesley Lokko and Demas Nwoko
In the very first room of this year’s show, at the entrance of the Corderie dell’Arsenale – a thin 300 metre long building where the Venetian navy produced its ropes for over seven centuries – a diffused blue light shines. It invites visitors to reflect on the notion of the blue hour, the time after sunset and before night. For Lokko the light marks a new era: “A moment between dream and awakening … a moment of hope.”
A Ghanaian-Scottish architect, educator and novelist, Lokko is the first woman of colour to curate the show. In her curatorial statement she highlights the “laboratory of the future”. Rather than a place for scientific experiments, the laboratory needs to be thought of more as a workshop. Here different practitioners can collaboratively test new forms of architecture. In the west, says Lokko, one continues to associate architects as the figures who build buildings. But they do much more, they build society, competency, knowledge, in a rapidly hybridising and interwoven world.
Demas Nwoko.Titi Ogufere/La Biennale di Venezia
Lokko subverts perspectives. She invites visitors to look at Africa not as a place where western models should be transferred to, but rather from which much can be learned.
The decision to award the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Demas Nwoko, a Nigerian architect and artist born in 1935, is significant to Lokko’s perspective.
His relatively few buildings are cited as “forerunners of the sustainable, resource-mindful, and culturally authentic forms of expression now sweeping across the African continent – and the globe”.
An example of this is the Dominican Institute and Chapel he completed in Ibadan, Nigeria in 1975. The motifs of a Christian building are reinterpreted through an African sense of place and ornamentation.
Lokko’s approach represents a radical shift in the way the biennale operates. It is an important contribution to the creation of genuine “contact zones”: places of productive exchange between people offering different views. This replaces the old arbitrary hierarchies with a reciprocal respect for diversity.
The tower above the altar of Nwoko’s chapel in Ibadan, Nigeria.Joseph Conteh/La Biennale di Venezia
This year’s event sparked a controversy over visas being denied to African architects. A good starting point for reciprocal respect would be to make it really possible for all to participate and attend, by breaking the barriers imposed by systemic inequalities and xenophobic immigration policies.
What’s on show
Of the 89, mostly young, participants invited to this year’s show, over half of are from Africa or the diaspora. They are carefully orchestrated in the show’s two main venues, the Giardini and the Arsenale, and six sections.
In the main pavilion, where the Force Majeure exhibition sets the scene, a towering installation by Nigerian visual artist Olalekan Jeyifous epitomises the imagery of the African future. His images are powerful spatial metaphors of the relationship between architecture, communities and environment. And the need to repair the damage done by former colonial powers.
Installation by Nigeria’s Olalekan Jeyifous.Matteo de Mayda/La Biennale di Venezia
In another room, the Oral Archive by Nairobi-based collective Cave Bureau celebrates the oral tradition of passing down knowledge across generations as a way to keep humans in community with the earth. On a multimedia screen three channels overlap. They display conversations with cave-dwelling communities, sequences from the Anthropocene museum, and drawings, maps and models done across vast geological sites.
The emphasis on two of Lokko’s overarching biennale themes – decolonisation and decarbonisation – can also be found also in the long, and at times uneven, sequence at the Arsenale. Here the Dangerous Liaisons section is interwoven with the curator’s special projects titled Food, Agriculture and Climate Change; Gender and Geography; Mnemonic; and Guests from the Future.
Work by Kenya’s Cave Bureau.Matteo de Mayda/La Biennale di Venezia
Here the synthetic landscapes of Nigerian-born film producer and director Michael Uwemedimo are presented. A physical ground made of clay and contaminated by global capitalism is transported from Port Harcourt in Nigeria to Venice. It is a departure point to imagine the future, displayed through AI-generated images on the ceiling.
Congolese artist and photographer Sammy Baloji expertly deconstructs the official narration of colonial occupation, suggesting a view of architecture and the human body as traces of social history. This is done by displaying an old colonial Belgian documentary poetically interwoven with film footage taken today.
What this all means
The 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale is an important and complicated edition, with a necessary message. One can only hope that the event will continue the process of decolonisation started by Lokko after years of absence of confrontation, comparison, and exchange between different positions.
A radical rethinking of the biennale, and of the (architectural) world in general, is long overdue. We need a different future. Enter the blue hour.
The biennale opens to the public on 20 May and is on until 26 November
Tomà Berlanda, Professor of Architecture, University of Cape Town
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license.
