Neighbours - A Manifesto, A Play for Two Pavilions, and Ten Conversations

The Swiss Pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale exhibits itself and the relations to its immediate surroundings. The exhibition is a conversation over the shared boundary of the pavilions of Switzerland (1952, designed by Bruno Giacometti) and Venezuela (1954, designed by Carlo Scarpa), the only two in the Giardini not fully detached: they share one wall. Artist Karin Sander and art historian Philip Ursprung temporarily open this wall and dismantle the gates from the Swiss Pavilion, thus revealing unanticipated connections between the two neighbours, both distant and close.