
The Republic of Kosovo brings this year to the 19th Venice Architecture Biennale an exhibition titled Lulebora nuk çel më. Emerging Assemblages. The exhibit was commissioned by the National Gallery of Kosovo and curated by the architect, interdisciplinary designer, and researcher Erzë Dinarama. Reflecting on the country's shifting agricultural landscapes in the context of ecological uprooting and embodied knowledge systems under climate pressure, the installation offers a sensorial exploration of Kosovan fieldwork. Combining a range of local soil materials with a hanging olfactory calendar, the Pavilion invites visitors to imagine through touch and smell.
Erzë Dinarama's exploration of landscape is grounded in fieldwork with farmers across Kosovo. Seeking to offer a sensorial account of rupture and reconfiguration in local fields, the Emerging Assemblages project traces a transition in which longstanding crops, such as wheat, peppers, grapes, and chamomile, struggle, while new ones, like kiwi and figs, take root. Behind the installation lies the idea that this agricultural shift reflects a rupture in the field of knowledge, meaning a deeper disconnection between sensory cues and seasonal markers that farmers have relied on for decades. This contingent rupture exposes the fragility of situated forms of knowledge while at the same time creating space for their recalibration.

The exhibition's objective is to materialize these ecological tensions through material elements that provide a sensorial experience. The choice of elements is motivated by the fact that they resist capture by predictive models: the foundation of the installation is the experience of soils and smells belonging to this uncertain Kosovan landscape. The Pavilion floor is covered with a range of soils sourced from two major Kosovar plains, from dark, fertile topsoils to lighter, mineral-rich strata. The selection reflects farmers' observation that soil behaves differently across regions and seasons, defining the possibilities of what can be planted and when. The material choice in the exhibition serves as a statement that "soil is neither static nor passive, but an active participant in ecological becoming, inscribing dynamic markers of change that resist standardized measurement."
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An Unfolding Crisis with a Hopeful Outlook: Highlights from the Projects Exhibited at Venice Architecture Biennale 2025The Pavilion's centerpiece is a circular structure, a relational calendar expressing these new agricultural rhythms through smell. The sense of smell is purposefully used as humans' most intimate and unquantifiable sense, with each scent acting as a temporal node in a rhythmic assemblage of change. The calendar is organized according to moments identified by farmers as critical to the life cycles of key crops, denominated by the curatorial team as "ecological thresholds." Smell is meant to act as a sensible approach to their stories of vanishing crops, delayed flowering, and emergent ecologies, "affirming the hyperlocal nature of embodied knowledge even as it drifts into new patterns." The Kosovan exhibition is therefore an invitation to consider this rupture not only as a loss but also as a space for reconfiguration, through the sound, smell, and feel of a world in transition.


The project also features a web-based platform that extends the research beyond the physical Pavilion, and the exhibition is accompanied by a publication featuring essays, fieldwork insights, critical reflections, and textual explorations expanding on the spatial imaginaries it evokes. The Republic of Kosovo has been participating in the Venice Architecture Biennale exhibition with a national pavilion since 2012. Past presentations included the work of Përparim Rama (2012), Gëzim Paçarizi (2014), Eliza Hoxha (2018), Maksut Vezgishi (2021), and Polikesen Qorri-Dragaj (2023).


This year's Venice Architecture Biennale hosts 65 national participations, with four countries, Azerbaijan, Oman, Qatar, and Togo, participating for the first time. This is accompanied by an exhibition of over 750 participants, said to be the largest in the Biennale's history. Other national pavilions from neighboring countries include Serbia's Wool Installation exploring circular design, Albania's Pavilion exploring the intersections of architecture, history, and identity, and Bulgaria's Pavilion exploring the paradoxes of artificial intelligence and sustainability.
We invite you to check out ArchDaily's comprehensive coverage of the 2025 Venice Biennale.