Savage Beauty, British Pavilion 2027
—
Venice Biennale
, IT
KBN worked with VDYA and NVBL on the proposed British Pavilion for the 2027 Venice Biennale.
— Venice Biennale , IT
Savage Beauty: Grounds for Extraction translates the legacies of colonial extraction into a spatial and material experience organized around ritual, labour, and collective making. Rather than illustrating history, the pavilion stages its consequences, examining how extractive systems continue to shape movement, material value, and everyday social practices.
The pavilion is structured through two interdependent spaces. The primary room operates as a performative environment for live Orang Asli weaving practices, where a large woven mat is suspended overhead and incrementally produced. As the mat grows, it exceeds its intended architectural limits, positioning collective labour as an active spatial force. A secondary tea room forms an intimate counterpoint, where tea is shared communally atop a table fabricated from tin and metal to foreground informal, lived social exchange.