The curatorial team of 'Life Object', the project exhibited in the Israeli Pavilion at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale, was the guest of the Outset Bialik Residency from January - May 2016. During their residency 'Life Object' curators worked on their research and curatorial vision for the exhibition.
Curatorial team: Dr. Ido Bachelet, Ben Bauer, Arielle Blonder, Dr. Yael Eylat Van Essen, and Noy Lazarovitch.
The Israeli Pavilion, 15th Venice Architecture Biennale, June - November 2016
'Life Object', explored the new relationship evolving between architecture and biology, and involved the work of renowned Israeli researchers, architects, designers and scientists (including Nobel PrizeWinner Dan Shechtman) with more than 100 contributors panning diverse fields. The central work of the exhibition was LifeObject, a massive 16-meter-long "bird's nest" composed of synthetic and natural materials. The free standing structure inspired by a 3D scan of a bird's nest undulated and curved throughout the lower floor of the pavilion and reacted to the body heat and movements of each viewer. This living structure integrated artificial and natural elements into an organic system. Human presence around the LifeObject triggered the opening of 'cabinet de curiosités' filled with biological materials which are expected to have a significant impact on architectural design and construction. In order to explore these dynamics further, the curatorial team, including architects Bnaya Bauer, Arielle Blonder, NoyLazarovich, scientist Dr. Ido Bachelet and curator Dr. Yael Eylat Van-Essen, invited seven groups of architects and scientists, among them Professor Dan Shechtman, a Noble Prize Laureate, to synergise their knowledge, and reorient their approach towards architecture. Examples ranged from using nano-materials to naturally control transparency in desert structures, to employing cancer treatment techniques to deal with urban densification. TheLifeObject exhibition revolved around the biological paradigm that drew an increasing interest in the field of contemporary architecture. It examined new relations taking shape between human beings and their environment, discarding the binary distinction between nature and culture. The aim of LifeObject was to constitute a platform for an interdisciplinary dialogue between architecture and science as a formative process in the Israeli space. The exhibition joined biomimetic practices along with bio fabrication and synthetic biology, putting forth speculative local architectural scenarios, from thenano-scale to urban spaces and global environmental phenomena. Some of these proposals can be actualised, while others constitute new visions for the future.
