Psychoanalyzing the 8 Best Pavilions of the London Design Biennale

Fear
Cooper Hewitt’s Face Values installation for the U.S. pavilion is a neatly-assembled exploration of facial recognition technology. The exhibit encourages visitors to sit before screens that read their faces to determine age, race, and emotional state. It’s playful enough on the surface but inevitably harks to the fearsome techno-gaze that lurks on the horizon.

Anger
Soft Identity Makers by the Puerto Rican design studio Muuaaa reflects the anger following Hurricane Maria by questioning the meaning of contemporary national identity. “What do ‘state’ and ‘nation’ mean when you are forced to be a refugee in your own country?” they ask in frustration. In response, visitors are invited to create their own algorithmically-crafted visual identities by selecting five images from the forty-five on display. (The author’s shown here.)

Sadness
Melancholia pervades Egypt’s medal-winning pavilion, Modernist Indignation, which explores the nation’s lost modernist heritage. Based around a fictional 1939 exhibition curated by the editors of Al Emara, the first Arabic-language design magazine, the installation displays demolished or unbuilt projects across a sleek chrome display. In an adjacent room, a stunning newly commissioned film shows a dancer exploring the spaces of Modernist architect Sayed Karim’s Cairo home.

Surprise
Seven head-sized concrete domes hang from the ceiling in the Qatari pavilion which, I presume, are playing sounds. I step beneath one, ready to listen, before a puff of smoke fires into my face. It’s a shock, but it’s not entirely unpleasant. The smoke is scented with tobacco, while others have hints of rain, mango, and perfumes. It’s a phenomenally simple set-up, but one that plays directly into the emotional memories and nostalgia of smell.

Trust
A Matter of Things tells the story of the Polish 20th century through individual objects whose symbolic significance transcends their everyday uses. A telephone from the early 1980s, for example, repeats a pre-recorded message reminding users of supposed pervasive government monitoring. Elsewhere, a white door refers to anti-government protests at Gdynia in 1970, where one of the dozens killed was carried in the street on a white door. These objects speak to trust, and lack thereof; the paranoia created by government and its institutions and the bonds of solidarity created between Polish people.

Trust
A Matter of Things tells the story of the Polish 20th century through individual objects whose symbolic significance transcends their everyday uses. A telephone from the early 1980s, for example, repeats a pre-recorded message reminding users of supposed pervasive government monitoring. Elsewhere, a white door refers to anti-government protests at Gdynia in 1970, where one of the dozens killed was carried in the street on a white door. These objects speak to trust, and lack thereof; the paranoia created by government and its institutions and the bonds of solidarity created between Polish people.

Joy
Mongolia’s pavilion, which delves into the manufacturing cycle of cashmere from mountain goats to fashion designers, consists mostly of a vat full of raw wool. The information on the luxurious material’s production is a little sparse, but watching the unprompted glee on faces of visitors as they dip their hands into the wool—so soft!—is a joy to behold.

Disgust
Austria’s pavilion is an outstanding diversion from the usual minimal chic of these design shows. A darkened room with human-scale sheds erupting from the walls shows a speculative scenarios in which future Alpine populations are adapting to the shifts in their landscape caused by climate change. A drone has been adapted to “rain” on farmlands; genetically engineered corn is produced in secret; the local population must physically rebuild a glacier. There is hope in After Abundance, but it’s hard not to feel disgust in what came before. That is, where we are now.

Disgust
Austria’s pavilion is an outstanding diversion from the usual minimal chic of these design shows. A darkened room with human-scale sheds erupting from the walls shows a speculative scenarios in which future Alpine populations are adapting to the shifts in their landscape caused by climate change. A drone has been adapted to “rain” on farmlands; genetically engineered corn is produced in secret; the local population must physically rebuild a glacier. There is hope in After Abundance, but it’s hard not to feel disgust in what came before. That is, where we are now.

Anticipation
Turner-prize nominees Forensic Architecture (FA) has collaborated with the V&A for the U.K. pavilion, titled Maps of Defiance. Where the work of FA presented in cultural institutions tends to come at the end of the investigation, Maps of Defiance shows the beginning of a project whereby members of the Yazidi community, suffering a genocide perpetrated by Islamic State in northern Iraq, are being trained in the forensic techniques of FA founder Eyal Weizman and his team in order to, someday, bring forward a legal case. Artifacts from the early stages of the investigation are displayed, such as a kite used for aerial photography. Typical of FA’s work, the despair in the case is accompanied by the anticipation of ongoing work in the pursuit for some sort of justice.