30 Million Years Under the Pavilion
Where the permanent meets the temporary in a tapestry of architectural storytelling
In 2025, the Korean Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale marks its 30th anniversary — a remarkable lifespan for a structure originally intended to be temporary. Beneath this now-permanent architecture, a hidden exhibition will be revealed only when the pavilion is dismantled, offering a quiet meditation on time, visibility, and the archaeology of architecture.
The fossilized remains of a mysterious hominid species, Nanogyna acephala — a small, headless, humanlike being were unearthed in Giardini in 1993. Far from a mere scientific curiosity, Nanogyna challenges accepted narratives of evolution, biology, and communication. With no head, yet rich in sensory and reproductive complexity, it reorients our understanding of where intelligence and life can reside.
Communicating through beeswax spheres and sound vibrations triggered by water, and reproducing via parthenogenesis, Nanogyna offers a symbolic figure for speculative evolution. Its uniquely adapted physiology appears to be shaped by the microclimate and biodiversity of Venice itself — a creature of the margins, born in the transitional space between natural and artificial ecosystems.
Like the pavilion that shelters it, Nanogyna lives in tension between permanence and impermanence, visibility and obscurity. This exhibition transforms the pavilion into an archaeological fiction, inviting visitors to step into a layered narrative — one that blends scientific imagination, evolutionary myth, and architectural memory.
Read Scientific publication about Nanogyna acephala.
CREDITS
Scientific Advisory:
Dr. Michael Ohl – Biologist, Natural History Museum of Berlin - Leibniz Institute for Research on Evolution and Biodiversity; Associate Professor, Humboldt University of Berlin
Dr. Massimo Canevacci – Cultural Anthropologist, Professor, Sapienza University of Rome and University of São Paulo
Dr. Felix Tropf – Genetic Sociologist, Associate Professor, University College London (UCL) and Purdue University
Artistic Team:
Marco Canevacci
Eric Engelbracht
Kindly supported by:
Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani (DSZV)
Title: Little Toad, Little Toad: Unbuilding Pavilion
Venue: Korean Pavilion, Giardini, Venice
Dates: May 10 – November 23, 2025
Curators: CAC (Curating Architecture Collective: Chung Dahyoung, Kim Heejung, Jung Sungkyu)
Commissioner: Arts Council Korea (ARKO)
Participating Architects/Artists:
o Kim Hyunjong (ATELIER KHJ)
o Heechan Park (Studio Heech)
o Young Yena (Plastique Fantastique)
o Lee Dammy (Flora and Fauna)