How are the influence and positionality of congregations deemed and measured? What defines or delineates its responsibilities? In the broader history of humankind, what has marked our evolutionary dominance, inclusive of (supposedly) exercising ‘free will’ and the advent and proliferation of our faculty of languages, is our acumen to gather, as a multitude, held by common beliefs of support, dissent, escapism, faith, avarice, and so forth. This working system of consolidated and designed events has matured to enable us as a society to indulge in premises mutually exclusive and inclusive, to chart various agendas including politically led, incentivised narratives, of entertainment or spiritually charged programs, of knowledge-gathering, celebration, mourning, and more.

In the global creative circuits of art, design, and architecture, this year witnessed a plethora of stimulating events: from the UIA World Congress of Architects deliberating on how the architectural industry can mend the world's future to the Venice Architecture Biennale’s resistance of the sustained Eurocentric perspective, by perpetuating untold, unjustly overlooked stories of the marginalised, many exerted and proliferated the power of collective change and action-taking, of subverting established narratives and setting systems in place which would effectively improve the ways we build and sustain our built environments.

Below, STIR recounts creative events of significance that upheld innovation and beauty, and insisted on change, while STIRring the global creative community at large this year.

1. Architects and designers delineate what constitutes ‘all’ and ‘everyone’ at UIA 2023

Held in Copenhagen, Denmark, from July 2 - 6, 2023, the UIA World Congress of Architects congregated creatives from across the disciplines of architecture, design, as well as the planning, construction, and building industries, to deliberate on pressing issues of the climate crisis, unsustainability, non-inclusivity, and more. With an overarching, rousing theme of Sustainable Futures - Leave No One Behind, the four-day event, with STIR as a media partner, platformed a series of presentations and conversations pivoted on unrelenting penitence over past (unsustainable and inconsiderate) practices by First World countries, and a promise to do better and to include all.

Key speakers including Pakistani architect Yasmeen Lari, Danish architect Bjarke Ingels, Burkinabé-German architect Diébédo Francis Kéré, German architect Anna Heringer, Rotterdam-based design and architecture curator, critic, and writer Aric Chen, American architects Jeanne Gang and Chris Downey, African architect Christian Benimana, Dutch architect Reinier de Graaf, and more, ruminated and debated at length, on whether, or how, architecture could mend the future.

2. Art Dubai Commission explores the complex socio-political nuance behind food

That food is universal is a truism: everyone must eat to survive, and yet, it hides a deeper, more complex social, political, and economic nuance. A series of ten poetic commissions at the heart of the 16th edition of Art Dubai (with STIR as a media partner), Chaupal explored this interplay of the intuitive understanding we all have, of the connections created over shared food, with individual lived experiences—here, the performance pieces, created from contemporary artists hailing from South Asia, allowed through the lens of food, for sustenance to perform as both, a metaphor and a literal site of exchange.

“Several of the projects in Chaupal are pointed towards a loss of place, family, famine, and grief. Displaying a history of exile, war, migration or persecution that pervade works [such as] of Rathin Barman's Mete-Begun (Chicken liver with Eggplant), a recipe innovated out of necessity to feed a family displaced from East Pakistan (now Bangladesh), or Amol Patil and Parul Sinha’s Péz—a form of gruel first served in colonial-era prisons, that later became the only source of nourishment for farmers working on the fields in Maharashtra and the Konkan region of India,” mentions the author.

3. STIR at Milan Design Week 2023 and Euroluce 2023

Coalescing business and culture, Salone del Mobile.Milano 2023 delved back to design in its 61st edition, evolving into a more powerful and streamlined version of itself. With 'light' as the underlying and overarching theme, the international design event took over Milan, Italy, and factored in the 'it' word of the creative industry, sustainability, sinewed across its fresh, multi-faceted layout, and replete in its core inquiry—Do you speak Design? The trade-fair was also accompanied and boosted by the return of the lighting biennial Euroluce (whose rethought layout drew from urban planning, as a 'city of light'), and the 24th SaloneSatellite, among various other protagonists of contemporary design.

The decorated Talks programme at the design fair this year, curated by Annalisa Rosso, included speakers such as Japanese architect Shigeru Ban, Japanese designer Nao Tamura, Norwegian architects and designers Kjetil Trædal Thorsen and Marius Myking of Snøhetta, and Andrea D'Antrassi, Associate Partner of MAD Architects, who engaged in insightful conversations with international journalists such as Yoko Choy, China Editor, Wallpaper*, Felix Burrichter, Creative Director of PIN–UP, freelance journalist, design critic and creative strategy consultant Anne-France Berthelon, along with Amit Gupta, Founder and Editor-in-Chief, STIR, and Samta Nadeem, Curatorial Director, STIR, respectively.

4. The counter-gaze of the African diaspora at Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 

Venice Architecture Biennale 2023 commenced, for the first time, with a curator of African descent: Ghanaian-Scottish architect Lesley Lokko. This year, the Global South became a site of experimentation with its main exhibitions spotlighting Africa and the African Diaspora within the architectural discourse. STIR contributor Ayesha Adonais recalled the impact and Lokko's curatorial exploration at the The Laboratory of the Future, the 18th International Architecture exhibition at the Venice Biennale, as it narrated a story of 'shape-shifters, material explorers, bound by history and heritage.'

In her words, “Lokko presents us with a counter-gaze or ‘oppositional gaze,’ as Bell Hooks described in her influential work, Black Looks: Race and Representation. The counter-gaze recognises that the dominant gaze, formed by structures of power and privilege, tends to objectify, deprecate, and distort the representations of those marginalised, shaping our understanding of the world. Hooks discussed challenging and subverting the dominant gaze. With 89 participants, over half representing Africa and the African Diaspora, and an equal gender mix, Lokko presents a vital alternative. An oppositional gaze that empowers individuals to challenge and reclaim their identities, experiences, and histories, disrupting the dominant narratives that perpetuate stereotypes and erasure.”

5. Liverpool Biennial 2023 is a conceptual exploration of windswept histories

Liverpool has earned its spot in popular culture for its football team and for being the birthplace of the Beatles. However, before they came to be, the city was crucial to the expansion of the British empire, with its strategic location and favourable climatic conditions enabling the slave trade and the import of goods at the Royal Albert dock. It is this history that the 12th Liverpool Biennial commemorated. Now in its 25th year, the art festival is titled uMoya: The sacred return of the lost things.

In conversation with STIR,  art curator Khanyisile Mbongwa delved into her curatorial conception which facilitated evolved sensibilities connecting with our ancestral past and celestial future, to go beyond the colonial framework of our identities. The multitude of artists exhibiting at the art biennial aimed to break away from the identity markers of colonial and postcolonial conditioning, by advocating for fluidity via performance art, moving images and liminal art installations.

6. Situating the post-colonial through the rhetoric of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial

“The agency of architecture in both, reinforcing these colonial and neo-colonial narratives as well as etching post-colonial ones, isn’t amiss. It is both the weapon of the oppressor and the shield of the dissenter, either as history or as a hybrid architecture yet to come. The search for a post-colonial identity being intrinsically linked to that architecture is at the heart of breaking away from the weight of colonial restitution,” writes Anmol Ahuja, senior features writer, STIR, who gives a precis of the tenacious, powerful, and comprehensive facets of the Sharjah Architecture Triennial in the UAE, curated by Nigerian architect Tosin Oshinowo.

The theoretical backing of the architecture festival’s sophomore edition, which follows the curatorial theme of 'Beauty of Impermanence: An Architecture of Adaptability,' structuralises an antithesis to colonial architectural remnants. As put forth by Ahuja, “An architecture produced within this tense space of the postcolonial can be then theorised to not only be a search for and a reclamation of national or cultural identity but also as engendering a form of practice that stems from this resource disparity, from scarcity. The 'Global South,' Oshinowo theorises, was built on a ‘culture of re-use, re-appropriation, innovation, and collaboration’.”

7. Contemporary Istanbul art fair widens geography and public programme

The 18^th Contemporary Istanbul art fair, which took place at the historic Tersane Istanbul district on the Golden Horn from September 28 - October 1, 2023, featured 67 galleries and eight art initiatives from 22 countries. The art event in Istanbul showcased over 1,500 artworks by 591 artists, drawing a diverse lineup of international galleries from South America, Africa, East Asia and the US. STIR attended Contemporary Istanbul and picked out some of the key highlights from the fair.

According to Aslı Ünal, the director of Contemporary Istanbul, Turkey is rapidly asserting itself as a formidable player on the global stage, particularly in this part of the Global South, and is presenting a new and promising market. She believes that as art dealers become more familiar with this potential, their confidence in the Turkish market will grow. However, for dealers new to the country, stepping into uncharted territory comes with its challenges, including navigating unfamiliar cultures.

8. Victoria Broackes on collaboration being key to the London Design Biennale 2023

The fourth edition of the London Design Biennale opened to the public on June 01, 2023, at the Somerset House in the UK. Packed with an intriguing mix of countries, practices, and installations, the Biennale set the stage for showcasing the importance of collaboration in addressing some of the most pressing issues of our times. The theme of this edition, The Global Game: Remapping Collaborations, was suggestive of the curatorial emphasis on seeking new vocabularies of design from crossing cultures, objects, and ideas.

The biennale’s director, Victoria Broackes, revealed in her conversation with STIR, how the event (the first design-focused biennale of its kind), aims to make design accessible and explicable for everyone. In the quest of subverting people’s misinterpretation of design being something that’s ‘just nice’ and is meant only for a select few, Broackes intended to exemplify the closely-knit relationship of design with our everyday lives, in addition to creating a platform with a broader public appeal.

9. STIR at India Art Fair 2023

STIR had its finger on the pulse of this year’s edition of the India Art Fair, which debuted a fusion of art and technology, straddling the modern and traditional in India's capital through installations, talks, and performance art, and welcoming visitors to view not only native but also international art, opening them to Indian culture while also engaging them with discourses from around the globe.

Among STIR's detailed coverage of the event were Hair and Her, a powerful exhibition which unravelled the history of a woman's hair and in doing so, revealed a history of subjugation cutting across cultures, nations and generations; Swiss Argentinian designer Alfredo Häberli took STIR through his reimagined design for Rado’s DiaStar Original; independent curator and educator Shaleen Wadhwana curated a series of talks at the fair in Delhi titled Align & Disrupt, comprising 15 talks spread across its three days, aimed to “align voices of leading artists and art professionals on critical issues in the arts ecosystem, and collectively disrupt the status quo, to shape a more aware and inclusive art world of the future."

10. Designing the future: A glimpse into Metaverse Architecture Biennale 2023

With STIR as a media partner, Metaverse Architecture Biennale 2023 journeyed beyond the virtual realm into the future of design. This groundbreaking event titled Presence of the Future invited all to embark on a journey bridging the past, present, and future of architectural innovation. Its inaugural edition united top creators from around the world in an endeavour to manifest the influence of architecture and design on the transformation of Web3 and the Metaverse into dynamic platforms for business and creativity. The biennale, which took place from September 21 - October 6, 2023, was accessible to all, and required only a computer with internet access, making it a global celebration of innovation and inspiration.

Among MAB's many interventions, ZHA principal Patrik Schumacher, curator Sergey Nadtochiy, and STIR’s Founder and Editor-in-Chief, Amit Gupta, ruminated upon the ‘presence of the future.’

11. Exploring Art Week Tokyo 2023, a young contemporary art festival in Japan

Art Week Tokyo 2023 ran from November 2-5, with VIP events for global curators, collectors and members of the press. While the general audience attending the art week were treated to a phenomenal selection of Japan’s rich contemporary art scene, it was during these VIP events when Tokyo’s Halloween festivities were at their height, which was the greatest sight to behold.

AWT is organised by Japan Contemporary Art Platform in collaboration with Art Basel and receives support from Japan’s Agency for Cultural Affairs as well. It brings together around 50 art institutions within the city of Tokyo, to display post-war and contemporary Japanese practices in tandem, giving them greater visibility. Additionally, AWT also organises talks and gatherings to create greater engagement between global curators and collectors and the Japanese arts ecosystem at large.

What’s NEXT?

A common thread was witnessed in these recounted creative endeavours—that of valorising care—a monumental chance to impact present conditions, an attempt to correct past wrongs, and strive towards bettering the future of the planet and all who reside in it. Intentional care is an investment that needs to be considered and practised above all else. Enriched further by the intersectant domains of gender, class, race, built environments, heritage, and more, these orchestrated events lay the groundwork for an exodus of change. Yet, despite the representation and visibility, promises of inclusivity, and renewed systems of repair and transformation, we wonder who really has access to these settings, and whether preachings become practises.

As we step into 2024, we need to enquire about the true impact of such happenings—do these events, in all their grandeur and obligations of amelioration, achieve what they genuinely set out to do? Ultimately, who does it serve? Are these discussions sustained and practised further, or do they remain heroic only within the decorated fair walls, fading out and eventually expiring once the tented venues and cogent banners are taken down?

STIRred 2023 wraps up the year with compilations of the best in architecture, art, and design from STIR. Did your favourites make the list? Tell us in the comments!

STIR heralds Venice Architecture Biennale 2023’s zealous crusade for an inclusive, equitable and sustainable future! Explore 'The Laboratory of the Future' and the expositions hosted across various national pavilions—Ireland, Ukraine, Canada, Denmark and more—with our exclusive interviews, visits, and analyses.