Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin T.D. today launched Ireland’s Representation at the Venice Architecture Biennale in 2021

The Minister for Tourism, Culture, Arts, Gaeltacht, Sport and Media, Catherine Martin T.D. today (Thursday, 20th May 2021) launched Ireland’s Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. This year Ireland is represented by Annex, a multi-disciplinary research and design collective, comprised of a core team of architects, artists, and urbanists who are presenting an exhibition entitled Entanglement which addresses how our everyday lives have become increasingly entangled with data technologies.

Launching the opening of the exhibition online, Minister Martin said:

“I congratulate Annex on this innovative and cutting edge exhibition which I know has been delivered in particularly challenging circumstances. The Venice Biennale remains the world’s most important international platform for presenting and discussing architecture. Since 2000, the Irish pavilion has showcased the range and vigour of Ireland’s diverse architectural culture and this year Ireland’s creative talents have delivered a special project with global resonance which I know will have wide reaching impacts.”

Ireland at Venice is an initiative of Culture Ireland in partnership with the Arts Council and the commitment to support and fund Ireland’s presence at the Venice Architecture Biennale enables Irish architects to achieve international exposure in line with the Government’s commitment to promote Ireland’s creative strengths globally.

Annex’s exhibition Entanglement situated in the Arsenale in Venice responds to the overall theme How will we live together? set by Hashim Sarkis, the curator of Venice Architecture Biennale.

Entanglement addresses the human, environmental and cultural impacts of communication technologies by highlighting the materiality of our digital age. The pavilion presents Ireland’s central place in the pan-national evolution of data infrastructure while reflecting the fact that historically Ireland has played a significant role in the story of data infrastructure. This dates back to 1858, when the world’s first transatlantic telecommunication cable landed at Valentia Island, off the south-west coast of Ireland. Extending from Newfoundland in Canada, the cable rendered the remote 11km-long island as the most connected node in a global telecommunications network.

Entanglement will be open as part of The Venice Architecture Biennale from Saturday May 22nd to Sunday November 21st 2021 and the viewers can also engage with the exhibition through a dedicated website entanglement.annex.ie and Culture Ireland’s YouTube channel from 20th May. On its return from Venice, Entanglement will tour in Ireland in 2022 thus ensuring that a wide Irish audience can see the exhibition first-hand.