العربيةExplore the essence of Venice’s knowledge and practicality with large-scale drawings,
Niger-based architecture studio Masumi has created large-scale drawings and attached 3D architectural models to walls.
To explore the essence of knowledge and practicality in architecture at this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale.
The installation, titled “Operation”, is located within a special section called “Force Majeure” in the central wing of the Giardini Place.
Atelier Almasoumi, led by Miriam Issoufou Camara, preferred to explore his own architectural approach through “an inner monologue,
inspiration and non-normative design perspectives that narrate a philosophy, Miriam Issoufou Camara, rooted in history and identity.
In response to Leslie Loko’s theme, Laboratory of the Future,
the exhibition presents three earlier studies of coastal architecture,
and put them together with UNODC projects such as the Al-Hikma Community Complex in Niger,
and the Beit B Museum of Art in Senegal, and Ellen Johnson. Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development in Liberia.
The exhibition is enriched with architectural models, videos and hand-drawn plans to invite visitors on a journey and the future laboratory of the studio in Niamey.
Take back control of knowledge
The installation narrows in several antecedents from West Africa,
bringing them into conversation with models for current projects such as the Wisdom Community Complex in Niger
and future projects such as the Bët-bi Museum of Art in Senegal and the Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Presidential Center for Women and Development in Liberia.
She has chosen not to reprint the source material but instead to reproduce it as large-scale hand drawings to make it our own.”
The murals are a tribute to the Neolithic carvings I grew up visiting in the mountains and caves of the Sahara desert.
To make architecture in the context of scarcity, extreme climate, and economic vulnerability,
I relied on the process to bring local narratives to the fore,
and translating dispossessed identities and histories into architectural form.
Considering the office’s original location, Niamey, Niger – the place is emphasized by the ecological,
economic and cultural characteristics of its context
and the erasure of traditional building techniques from public awareness.
This really provides a “laboratory” to be able to make thoughtful architecture
that is an extension of the past with innovation towards the future.
“The process is a collision between the future and the past in search of innovative architectural approaches relevant to today’s challenges,” the studio explained.
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