On Thursday, the Children’s Forest Pavilion representing Lithuania opened at the Venice Biennale of Architecture.
The Children’s Forest Pavilion is designed as a playscape to draw attention to children’s unique way of observing and explaining the forest.
Children of all ages explored the forest as a phenomenon in the Lithuanian and Finnish old-growth forests, observed by curators Jurga Daubaraitė, Egija Inzuls, and Jonas Žukauskas, together with a team of architects, researchers, and artists, who created the pavilion.
“The idea behind the Children’s Forest Pavilion is to encourage people to think differently about the forest. The curators of this pavilion have approached the forest as a pedagogical project. We invited researchers, artists, architects, and educators to think about the forest together with children and look at it as if it was a classroom,” says Ines Weizman, Commissioner of the pavilion.
“The main idea was to make children understand that the forest is a system with a structure and that every creature has a place in it. We also talked about time, how we feel it in the forest, as well as about lights, colours, different organisms, and their symbiosis,” added forest educator Riita Nykanen.
Unlike some other pavilions, visitors can visit Children’s Forest Pavilion for free. They are invited to play and learn about forests.
The pavilion representing Lithuania is located in front of a historic building – the Venetian Arsenal. It will be open until November 26.
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