Description

WCA-Syria at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025- Reimagining Waters from Source to Land: The Living Archive of the Orontes River.

2025

Location: The Corderie, Arsenale, La Biennale Dii Venezia

Reimagining Waters explores water as a cultural and political mediator—through which collective knowledge is shared, shaped, and often contested. Drawing from spatial history and oral narratives , the project examines how water infrastructure has long served as a scaffold for adaptation, especially in face of scarcity.

Suspended from the ceiling of the Arsenale, a 10-meter stretch of silk hosts a large-scale projection of the region’s hydrological landscape. This cartographic textile traces the location of 125 historic water collection points—sites that reflect a variety of typologies and social uses. These architectural forms are recalled today through personal archives, photographs, and sketches—many of which are layered onto Silk 3.

The installation includes a series of interviews, one of which features a carpenter whose practice involves the ongoing restoration of these water structures. His testimony reveals how techniques and traditions have had to adapt under conditions of scarcity and political upheaval, illuminating a complex relationship between craft and ecology.