2025 Venice Architecture Biennale

MEHDI DAKHLI presents "Intrecciata Venezia" Lo StudioDorsoduro 928, Fondamenta de la Zattere ai Gesuati, Venice
until the 12nd of October

Almadies Desk, Mehdi Dakhli / Painting, Alexandre Gourçon / Mehdi Dakhli © Clovis Tanguy

On the occasion of the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, designer and creative consultant Mehdi Dakhli curates “Intrecciata Venezia” a contemplative look at Venice’s history as a center of cultural exchange, presented at Lo Studio. The show will place new functional sculptures by Dakhli in conversation with contemporary artworks by Joël Andrianomearisoa, Seyni Awa Camara, Clément Gloaguen, Alexandre Gourçon, Abdoulaye Konaté, and Ibrahim Mahama. This chorus of voices and identities tells the story of the city, which, because of its strategic position in the Adriatic Sea, has served as a bridge between east to west for centuries. 


DAKHLI'S NEW PIECES: VENICE THROUGH THE LENS OF AFRICAN HERITAGE
 
In his own pieces, Dakhli, who is French of Tunisian descent, looks at the architectural traditions of Venice through the lens of his North African heritage. For a series of sconces, he tapped the storied glassblowers of Murano to realize forms that mimic the horseshoe arches found Venetian buildings. This is one of many hallmarks of Islamic architecture commonly found in the floating city, which began incorporating such details after trading posts were established across the Muslim world after the first Crusades. Meanwhile, Dakhli has also collaborated with artisans to incorporate carved pearwood, a noble Venetian material typically used for gondolas and musical instruments, and patinated bronze into other furniture pieces. A timber cabinet references Tunisia’s Brutalist Hotel du Lac—a North African structure by an Italian architect—while the bronze legs of his daybed nod to ancient Egyptian and Byzantine forms.  


For his first non-functional work, Dakhli addresses a darker side of Venice’s past, revisiting the Murano glass beads that were historically traded with Africa for goods or slaves. Made up of cobalt blue orbs, strung together like a rosary, his piece questions the role religion played in legitimizing the slave trade that flourished in Venice through the 15th century. Furthermore, his choice of cobalt for the beads was not accidental, but a reference to this important element, originally mined in Persia and traded through Venice, that would go on to influence painting and porcelain customs across the globe.