Mouthful of Meetings was arranged 19th of September at La Biennale in Venice, in the beautiful and athmospherical Corderie dell'Arsenale. Commissioned by the Norwegian National Museum of Architecture, the event added a contemporary layer to the Nordic Pavilion exhibition 2014, “Forms of Freedom. African Independency and Nordic Models”. A Virtual Dinner worth the name, the discussion was also live streamed publicly to reach audience outside the Arsenale walls.
The event brought together 8 Nordic and African based panelists, with a background both in the academic world and as practizing architects. The debate was moderated by Andres Lepik, the Director of TU München's Architecture Museum and Justine Bell, a South-African architect based in Denmark. The discussion revolved around questions of African identity in an architectural and a global context, the role of the foreign and local architect and the emerging urbanism and informal architecture in many African cities. The event was rounded up with an informal dinner that gave the possibility for the participants and the audience to continue the discussion after the panel debate.
All in all, a great panel with professionals with varying backgrounds created a lively discussion that could have continued longer. The original idea of extending the South of North dialogues and building up an international network has certainly succeeded beyond expectations, to the extent that the next meeting already was preliminarily booked to Cape Town.
Our warmest thanks to all the participants and supporters: La Biennale, Nina Berre, Nina Frang Høyum, Andres Lepik, Justine Bell, Mokena Makeka, Peter Makachia, Maxwell Mutanda, Viktoria Walldin, Ina B. Sem-Olsen, Helena Sandman, Tomá Berlanda, Daniel Baumann, Inari Virkkala, Pilvi Vanamo, Anna Autio, Max Lönnqvist, Frida Vang Petersen, Tyra Dokkedahl, Rune Asholt, Carolina Wikström, Frida Öster, Annika Järvelin, Lauri Kerola and everyone that has been involved during the planning or execution.
