Pavilion will be open 18 May – 26 November 2023
2125 Campo Tana, Castello, Venice
(opposite the entrance to the Arsenale)
As a part of the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 Mustarinda (Michaela Casková, Robin Everett, Tiina Arjukka Hirvonen and Riitta “Nyyskä” Nykänen) collaborated with Neringa Forest Architecture on the Children’s Forest Pavilion, representing the Lithuanian Pavilion. Throughout late 2022 and early 2023 a team of Mustarinda members, working as artists and art & environmental educators held a series of workshops with the local Puolankajärvi and Hyrynsalmi comprehensive schools in Kainuu that informed and evolved into a play space in the pavilion, a video work, and a publication and workbook.
Six workshops took place during the crisp days of late autumn 2022 in Kainuu, Finland. Several workshops also followed in Nida, Lithuania. The workshop series explored what makes a forest, its ecosystem, and its many communities through processes of investigation, art making, and learning about the forest ecology. The workshops also reflected on the human impacts on forests, the resilience of forest biomes, and on time as a key factor of biodiversity gain.
The Paljakanvaara multispecies community, the workshops, and Mustarinda’s collective efforts to further understandings and knowledges of the local communities and ecosystems are present through the Pavilion in many forms and layers. The work, woven from and into the long and short time cycles of the forest, can be seen throughout ‘The Forest Continuum’ publication and workbook (pdf). The children’s own imagery and processes of learning and knowing are present in the pavilion through a film and informing the playspace environment.
CHILREN’S FOREST PAVILION CURATORS:
Jurga Daubaraitė, Egija Inzule, Jonas Žukauskas, Comissioner: Ines Weizman
CONTRIBUTORS: Aistė Ambrazevičiūtė, Ancient Woods Foundation, Gabrielė Grigorjevaitė, Laura Garbštienė, Mustarinda Association (Tiina Arjukka Hirvonen, Michaela Casková, Robin Everett, Riitta (Nyyskä) Nykänen), Mantas Peteraitis, School of Creativity (Kristupas Sabolius), New Academy (Ikko Alaska, Nene Tsuboi, Tuomas Toivonen), Urbonas Studio (Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas), Kornelija Žalpytė
MUSTARINDA TEAM WOULD LIKE TO THANK:
6th grade students from Puolankajärvi comprehensive school and teachers, 4th grade and and teachers and Mustarinda art club students from Hyrynsalmi comprehensive school. Elis Hannikainen, Laura Suurhasko, Kryštof Kučera, Zuzana Janečková, Chris Mayer, Vilma Mankonen, Saija Kangasniemi. Mustarinda association members for support and Neringa forest Architecture for initiating such exciting multilayered collaboration(s)! Thank you Finnish Culture Foundation for travelling grant.
Poster illustration: Izadora Daubaraitė Žukauskaitė
Photos: Rasa Juskeviciute
FULL LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS AND MORE INFO: HTTPS://NERINGAFORESTARCHITECTURE.LT/CHILDRENS-FOREST-PAVILION/