19th Venice Architecture Biennale: All-Indigenous Curatorial Team Presents HOME at Australia Pavilion

Opening on 10 May at the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale, HOME brings together an all-Indigenous curatorial team of Australian First Nations academics and practitioners to explore the broader meaning of home and engage in dialogue that enacts richness through understanding commonalities between cultures.

HOME offers a spectacular earth and plaster experience of place, encapsulating a serene and highly sensory domain. The three appointed Creative Directors of the Australia Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia 2025 (detailed below) were inspired by the vast, beautifully storied natural terrains of the Australian continent, and the exhibition explores the relationship of Country with the oldest continuous living culture in the world.

“HOME is a generous and timely offering to the Venice Architecture Biennale that will welcome visitors as active contributors and participants.” – Emily McDaniel, Co-Creative Director

The Creative Directors are collaborating with a wider group of First Nations practitioners in what they refer to as the ‘Creative Sphere’ (listed below). The Creative Sphere recalibrates Western approaches to architecture by sharing methodologies that integrate First Nations practices and processes into the built environment to elevate outcomes for the future and a global obligation to care for Country.

Through the process of creating HOME in Venice, they aim to demonstrate the power of a collaborative design approach rooted in First Nations yarning. HOME encourages architects to consider alternatives to traditional Western hierarchies and processes by relating with each other and sharing stories.

The Creative Sphere is the first presentation since Australia voted ‘NO’ to enshrine an Indigenous Voice to Parliament in the 2023 Voice Referendum. Their appointment comes immediately after First Nations artist, Archie Moore’s exhibition kith and kin at the Australia Pavilion which was awarded the prestigious Golden Lion for Best National Participation at La Biennale di Venezia 2024, the first time in history an Australian artist has received this accolade.

The yarning process the team has used to create HOME highlights an inclusive practice that breaks down hierarchies to facilitate meaningful relationships where all voices are heard. Acknowledging cultural diversity encourages equity and shared voices in all future projects.

HOME brought together 125 architecture and design students from 11 Universities, to participate in the making of the exhibit and responding to the provocation of home. Devised by Dr Michael Mossman and Elle Davidson, the unit was hosted by the University of Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning. This ground-breaking program was the largest School of Architecture collaboration in Australia.

The learning program expanded understanding of Australian First Nations cultural practices through engagement with memory, identity, place and materiality. Through iterative online and physical interactions, conversations, journaling, drawing and prototyping, Students were tasked with designing a ‘living belonging’, an object that articulated their deep reflections of home. The ‘living belongings’ frame the exhibit and visitors are invited to gently touch, interact or hold each belonging, and consider the processes, stories and memories that have inspired each reflection of home.

“The Creative Sphere will enact culturally inclusive dialogue as an approach to Australian architecture through First Nations methodologies of gathering and yarning. In creating the vision of HOME for the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale Australia Pavilion, the Creative Sphere presents a design approach that has been gathering momentum that Indigenises the built environment through moments and locations between cultures.

HOME will enact the Indigenous practice of yarning as a methodology to highlight the multitude of actions that can elicit dialogue, from spoken word and living object creation to deep listening and the sharing of stories behind what HOME means to all of us. A multitude of outcomes through process and relationship building and strengthening will create dialogue that is impactful and resonating with Country.

For HOME, guests will share their stories to cultivate a deeper sense of agency, custodianship and reciprocity. This will contribute to the evolution of living environments that continually regenerate ways of being, knowing and doing through the activation of inclusive dialogue and relationships.”

– The Creative Directors

The Australian Institute of Architects as the Commissioner and Creative Australia as Project Partner have supported the Creative Sphere’s journey to create Home in the Australia Pavilion at Venice in 2025.

More information: creative.gov.au/venice-biennale/architecture-exhibition

Follow on Instagram: @ausatvenice