One of Australia’s greatest cultural symbols – the pool – forms the foundation of the Pavilion of Australia at the Biennale Architettura 2016. The Australian Exhibition, presented by the Australian Institute of Architects and curated by Aileen Sage Architects (Isabelle Toland and Amelia Holliday) with Michelle Tabet, uses the pool as a lens through which to explore Australian cultural identity.
Their manifesto encourages the audience to step outside the architect-to-architect discourse to show how a familiar, common object, the pool, is in fact pregnant with cultural significance; it is both artefact and catalyst of change. The Pool is about public space as a vital component to society and shows the many ways in which its public character is interpreted and occupied. Through the description of events, experiences, histories or memories, the narratives presented collectively describe a powerful relationship between place and society, intrinsic to this year’s Biennale Architettura theme Reporting from the Front.
The Creative Directors have selected eight prominent cultural leaders to share their personal stories, to explore the relationship between the pool, its architecture and Australian cultural identity. The contributors include Olympic gold medal winning swimmers Ian Thorpe and Shane Gould; environmentalist and 2007 Australian of the Year Tim Flannery; fashion designers Romance Was Born; writer of best-selling book “The Slap” Christos Tsiolkas; winner of the 2012 Miles Franklin Prize Anna Funder; Indigenous art curator Hetti Perkins and Australian rock-musician Paul Kelly.
Each narrative touches on a different scale of experience of the pool, from the scale of the body to the scale of the continent, and together all reveal the myriad meanings and impacts of the pool on Australian society; as a means to enable survival in an unforgiving landscape, to tame our environment, to provide spaces that facilitate direct contact with nature, to create democratic social spaces, but also spaces for healing racial and cultural division.
The voices of the storytellers are presented as a sound installation within the Pavilion of Australia as part of an immersive installation. Within a designed landscape, the exhibition engages visitors using sound and light reflecting on water and casting fluid patterns on the walls of the white box interior of the pavilion. All these sensory triggers will transport visitors poolside and evoke the pools of Australia in all their forms, be they natural or manmade, inland or coastal, temporary or permanent. The main room of the Pavilion features a 60 sqm water-filled pool, which covers about a third of the space, and is about a foot deep.
The Creative Directors have commissioned the Centre for Appropriate Technology, based in Alice Springs in Central Australia, to fabricate steel-framed pool lounger chairs for the exhibition space. The design was developed in collaboration with industrial designer Elliat Rich and the colours selected to reflect the colours of Australia’s centre. The Pool will be open to the public throughout the duration of the Biennale Architettura 2016, from 28 May to 27 November 2016.
Images courtesy of Brett Boardman
Discover: wp.architecture.com.au
