Refuge for Resurgence, Biennale Architettura, La Biennale di Venezia, 2021. Photograph by Giorgio Lazzaro.

Text

Having survived Earth’s abrupt shift to an era of precarious climate, a multispecies community gather in the blasted ruins of modernity to find new ways of living together.

Working together to carve out a new world from the smouldering remains of the old. Working together to forge enduring forms of sharing and survival. Working together to revive this land, this land, once a place of order and control.

Humans, animals, birds, plants, moss, and fungi gathering around a shared hope for our more than human future. A hope in the life that remains. A hope in the resurgence of life stretched thin around this rock, painting its surface blue and green as it spins wildly in the vast blackness.

Refuge for Resurgence is a multi-species banquet with a fox, rat, wasp, pigeon, cow, human adults and child, wild boar, snake, beaver, wolf, raven and mushroom. The scene lays bare a conversation between the paralysis of fear and the audacity of hope.

Images

Photoshoot by Giorgio Lazzaro.

Photograph courtesy of Superflux.

Photoshoot by Giorgio Lazzaro.

Window View designed in collaboration with Sebastian Tiew.

Photoshoot by Mark Cocksedge.

Photoshoot by Giorgio Lazzaro.

Film

Exhibitions

Refuge for Resurgence was first exhibited at the Biennale Architettura, La Biennale Di Venezia 2021 from 22nd May to 21st November, 2021.

Press

Superflux: the duo inspiring change at Venice Biennale through hypothetical worlds – Josie Thaddeus-Johns for Financial Times Weekend

A Multispecies Banquet. – Alec Carver for The Common Table

“Superflux renounces the leading role Abrahamic faiths give humanity. Rebuilding the ecological order will require equality and negotiation among peers.”

Superflux Sets The Table For A More-Than-Human Future At La Biennale Di Venezia – John P. Kazior for MOLD Magazine

“As so many designers, engineers, and scientists are working urgently to find hack our way out of ecological devastation, Refuge for Resurgence examines the ideological and cultural paradigms that must also shift, that we might ever find a more harmonious relationship with the more-than-human worlds around us.”

STIRring Together: ‘Refuge for Resurgence’ offers glimpse into a new way of living – Devanshi Shah for STIRWorld

“Located in the Arsenale during this year’s Venice Architecture Biennale, Superflux’s interpretation to the 2021 thematic goes beyond a human centric response.”

Superflux imagines multi-species banquet for Venice Architecture Biennale – Jennifer Hahn for Dezeen

Credits

Curation
Hashim Sarkis, Gabriel Kozlowski and Roi Salgueiro

Idea and Conception
Anab Jain and Jon Ardern

Superflux Development Team
Ed Lewis, Nicola Ferrao, Leanne Fischler, Nico Fioritti and Matt Edgson

Visual Effects
Sebastian Tiew of Cream Projects

Biennale Coordination
Stefania Fabris and Massimiliano Bigarello

Woodworking
Gareth Huw Lewis of Classic Watercraft

Botanical Design
Miranda King of Wild and King

Exhibition Dates
22 May to 21 November, 2021

Funding
The project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant Agreement No. 870759. This is part of the CreaTures (Creative Practices for Transformational Futures) project, which brings together a consortium of artists and academics to examine the transformational potential of creative practices in moving the world towards socio-ecological sustainability.

This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No 870759. The content presented represents the views of the authors, and the European Commission has no liability in respect of the content.