British Council names curators to represent the UK at the 2025 Venice Biennale

The British Council has named four architectural curators to represent the UK at the 2025 Venice Biennale following a competition held earlier this year. 

Two architects and two academics were selected from a shortlist of four design proposals to be presented at the British pavilion at the Venice Biennale, which will be held from 24 May to 23 November.

The curators are Owen Hopkins, director of the Farrell Centre at Newcastle University, Kathryn Yusoff, professor of Inhuman Geography at Queen Mary University, and Kabage Karanja and Stella Mutegi, who are both co-founders and directors at Cave_bureau based in Nairobi, Kenya.

The exhibition will explore themes of repair, restitution and renewal by looking at architecture as an “earth practice” and exploring vernaculars through the lens of decarbonisation and decolonisation, according to the British Council.

The appointed curatorial team said: “The exhibition will map architectures from across the world defined by an embedded relationship to the ground, which are resilient in the face of climate breakdown, social, economic and political upheaval; and that offer refuge and empowerment for the most climate exposed communities.

”To frame this, we intend to conceptually reinscribe the British Pavilion by turning it inside out and unearth what these acts of repair might look like when framing a planetary vernacular.”

The selection panel of nine architectural professionals was chaired by British Council director of architecture design and fashion Sevra Davis, who is the commissioner of the British pavilion, and also includes RIBA president Muyiwa Oki.

Davis said the appointments makred the first time that the British Council has used its platform to “celebrate international connection and collaboration” at the British pavilion.

> Also read: The British Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale - Dancing Before the Moon

Selection committee member Aseem Inam of the Welsh School of Architecture at Cardiff University added: “The selected proposal is remarkably provocative, creative, and thoughtful. 

“The proposal recognizes that architecture has been complicit in inequality and environmental degradation, but that it also offers opportunities for repair, restitution, and renewal.”