Francelle Cane and Marija Marić Selected as Curator of the Luxembourg Pavilion at the 2023 Venice Biennale

The Down to Earth project by Francelle Cane and Marija Marić was unanimously selected by the jury to create the Luxembourg Pavilion for the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale. The jury appreciated the detailed analysis of the Luxembourg territory in the broad sense and of its inhabitants while giving the project a universal inflection. The winning team is made up of two curators Francelle Cane and Marija Marić, supported by an Advisory Council and a team of contributors in the fields of scenography, content production, and media. They also wish to rely on a network of Luxembourg and international partners.

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The unbridled imagination of extractive growth has literally transcended the boundaries of the Earth. This shift from mining the depleted Earth to its “invisible” backstage – celestial bodies, planets, and ultimately the Moon itself – calls for urgent reflection on the impact this shift will have on our understandings of the earth, resources, and commons, both on the ground and beyond. Described as “the rising star of the space industry” and “a pioneer in the exploration and use of space resources”, Luxembourg, whose economy was once based on iron mining and production of steel, appears as an important starting point for this debate. —Extract from the “Down to Earth” project by Francelle Cane and Marija Marić.

The winning project addresses major contemporary issues: the question of land ownership, the management of space and resources, and a return to the body and the sensitive. It aims to make visible a subject that remains mostly hidden by raising the question of the resources of the earth’s soil at different scales. Above all, it brings into perspective the future world that we are making, thus pushing back beyond the Earth and the limits of spaces exploited by man.

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Both curators are architects and researchers associated with the University of Luxembourg. Francelle Cane has been a curator and scenographer for numerous exhibitions, including the Enter the Modern Landscape exhibition for which she received the International WERNAERS Fund for Research and the Diffusion of Knowledge (FNRS), Brussels (BE) prize. She is currently developing her doctoral study on the subject After the Ruin. On Property and Territorial Negotiation. Marija Marić is working as a postdoctoral research associate in the Master in Architecture Program at the University of Luxembourg. In 2020, she obtained her doctoral degree from the Institute for the History and Theory of Architecture, ETH Zurich, with her thesis examining the role of communication strategists in the mediation, design, and globalization of urban space.

The Ministry of Culture Luxembourg, Commissioner of the Luxembourg Pavilion, has appointed Kultur|lx—Arts Council Luxembourg to oversee the selection of the laureate and produce the exhibition, in cooperation with LUCA—Luxembourg Center for Architecture.