After being lauded at the Venice Biennale, the U.S. pavilion will be displayed in Chicago from February 15 to April 27 at the Wrightwood 659 gallery space. "Dimensions of Citizenship: Architecture and Belonging from the Body to the Cosmos" explores what it means to be a citizen today, the meaning of home, the right to public space, the dynamics of borders, and architecture’s role in belonging.
“The themes have become even more relevant and urgent in the year,” says project curator Ann Lui, an assistant professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and cofounder of Future Firm. She curated the exhibition with Niall Atkinson, an associate professor of architectural history at the University of Chicago, and Mimi Zeiger, a Los Angeles–based critic. Iker Gil, an architect and director of MAS Studio, worked as associate curator.
"Dimensions of Citizenship" is made up of seven immersive installations that show architecture’s role in shaping spaces of citizenship. For its installation, Studio Gang transported 800 cobblestones from a riverbank landing in Memphis where slave ships docked, titled Stone Stories. The project shows how citizens can claim their history and demonstrate their citizenship through public spaces.
“These themes have been so much in the news lately. Whether it’s the government shutdown over a wall at the border, the removal of Confederate monuments, or protests in airport lobbies,” Lui says, “what it means to belong is an urgent topic to a lot of people—it’s really important for architects, landscape architects, and designers to respond.”
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