“Migrating Cities” during Venice Biennale

The Antarctic Pavilion brings together leading international architects and artists to explore present and future models of living with Antarctica. The Pavilion’s status as a ‘[trans]National Pavilion’ also constitutes a polemical engagement with the Biennale’s nationally over-determined structure: a quasi-institutional claim to represent a transnational sphere, out of line with the festival’s politics of territorial representation. More importantly, it points to Antarctica as a Giardini of sorts, in which the sovereignty-obsessed cultural ambitions relevant two centuries ago still seem to hold sway – for the worse.