On August 5, 2022, proposals that offered potential solutions to challenges on living and building were reviewed. They touched on the position of architectural practice in the local and global landscape and actions to mitigate humanity’s relationship with their community and the environment. The deliberation resulted to the selection of the exhibition, Tripa de Gallina: Guts of Estuary proposed by Sam Domingo and Choie Y. Funk, featuring The Architecture Collective in engagement with Barangays 739, 750 and 751 of Manila, as the official entry of the Philippines at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia in 2023. It will be mounted at the Philippine Pavilion in Arsenale in Venice from May 20, 2023 to November 26, 2023.
The pavilion exposes the longstanding relational issues of the residents of Barangay 739, 750, and 751 located along Estero de Tripa de Gallina. This body of water cuts through these neighborhoods with disproportionately thousands of informal settlers. Much like the site of these barangays, the estuary becomes heavily congested. As a sustainable attempt to address this unsustainable network of obstacles, the project puts forward with the community a Bamboo-made design solution that serves as a buoy for these relationships and a signal for collaborative action in the name of resilience.
The deliberation of curatorial proposals was held via Zoom with an esteemed panel of jurors composed of Vipash Purichanont, independent art curator and professor; Alexander Eriksson Furunes and Sudarshan Khadka Jr., curators of Structures of Mutual Support, Philippine Pavilion in the 17th Venice Architecture Biennale; Senator Loren Legarda, chief advocate of the project; and Dr. Rene R. Escalante, Chairman of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the Commissioner of the Philippine Pavilion. The deliberation involved discussions on sustainability, universal resonance, and the connection to the community.
