The Minister of Culture and National Heritage and the Zachęta National Gallery of Art are seeking, through a competition, an idea for the curatorial design of the exhibition in the Polish Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice, which is scheduled from May 10 to November 23, 2025.

The Venice Biennale will be curated by Italian architect Carlo Ratti, who studies on a daily basis how new technologies affect the way we live in cities. The slogan for next year's Venice Architecture Biennale is "Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective." The word Intelligens alludes to intelligence and draws from Latin, in which gens means people. In this way, the curator explains, a new fictional core emerges, suggesting a future of intelligence that is inclusive, multifaceted and imaginative, beyond today's limiting focus on artificial intelligence.

purpose

The purpose of the competition is to select a curatorial design for the exhibition to be realized in the Polish Pavilion, which will be presented at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice.

Projects submitted to the competition should address issues relevant to contemporary architecture, both locally and globally. Part of the competition proposal is also to define the author's theme for the exhibition, along with the justification for it.

terms and conditions

The competition is open, two-stage. It is directed to curators or curatorial teams. The curator of the project or, in the case of a curatorial team, at least one person must have: a university degree, a good knowledge of contemporary architecture, curatorial experience in organizing exhibitions, a good command of English to the extent that allows free communication.

The condition for taking part in the competition and submitting a work is that the curator/curatorial team obtains the consent of the artist(s) (by artists is also meant architects and other artists) for the use of existing works or a commitment to create a work provided for Competition Work II.

A Competition Work I is submitted for Stage I, which includes:

1. an overall concept of the exhibition with a specific author's theme,
2. general visualization of the exhibition,
3. a tentatively planned overall cost estimate for the exhibition broken down into major cost groups.

Participants whose works, as a result of the jury's deliberations, have been qualified for Stage II of the competition, submit Competition Works II, which is a development of the project presented in Stage I. Competition Work II should include:

1. the concept of the exhibition - a brief idea of the project,
2. full scenario of the exhibition with visualization,
3. summary of the exhibition scenario,
4. a cost estimate including all costs of exhibition production broken down into individual expense categories
5. a description of the curatorial/authorial team's planned activities that will contribute to minimizing the negative impact of the project's implementation on the environment, or information on the absence of factors negatively affecting the environment, with justification.

Detailed guidelines are available in the competition regulations.

calendar

• deadline for submission of works (stage I): until September 20, 2024
• announcement of the results of stage I: September 24, 2024
• planned deadline for submission of works (stage II): until October 21, 2024

competition court

The Minister of Culture and National Heritage will appoint a competition commission consisting of no less than 11 people from among those proposed by the organizer.

prizes

The competition provides for only one prize, which will be awarded to the author(s) of the selected project. It is the opportunity to realize an exhibition in the Polish Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition in Venice in 2025. The costs of preparing and producing the exhibition, as well as the fees of the curator and artists, will be covered by the organizer.

more information

More details can be found on the competition website.

terms

https://labiennale.art.pl/konkurs/

regulations

https://labiennale.art.pl/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/Regulamin-konkursu-2025.pdf