The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), and the Office of Senator Loren Legarda, announces the open call for curatorial proposals for the Philippine participation at the 16th Venice Architecture Biennale.

Spearheaded by the NCCA Chairman Virgilio Almario, the search is open to Filipino citizens who are architects, curators, practising artists from the different disciplines, urban planners, ecological activists, geographers, historians, heritage workers, and others. Proposals may be by a single curator or by a team of two.

The selected curatorial proposal will officially represent the country in this important global exhibition platform of contemporary architecture. The proposal will be realised at Artiglierie in Arsenale, the main venue of the Biennale.

In the context of the Venice Biennale, architecture is not solely confined to its built form nor the logistical and designed components. Architecture refers to the range of ways in which space is sensed, appropriated, inhabited, transformed, and conceptualised in relation to an array of relationships playing out in the field of history and culture. It is rendered responsive to the contemporary conditions and therefore becomes a central concern not only of professional architects but of other social agents and space makers as well, who are keen to reflect on the complex situations of space and its making in current social life.

On the upcoming Architecture Biennale, its curators will be Yvonne Farrell and Shelley McNamara who have been known for their stupendous teamwork in Dublin. " Farrell and McNamara will continue to address the same theme as last year [architecture as one of civil society's instruments for organising the space in which it lives and works] but this time from the point of view of the quality of the public and private space, of urban space, of the territory and of the landscape as the main ends of architecture," said Chairman of the Board of La Biennale di Venezia Paolo Baratta. "The curators, who are well-known for the refinement of their work, are also known for their intense didactic activity and their ability to involve and fascinate new generations.”

For more information regarding the requirements of the curatorial proposal, you may check www.philartvenicebiennale.com, and submit all necessary documents via email at info@philartvenicebiennale.net on or before August 20, 2017. Result will be announced on or before September 30.