VENICE.- After a series of delays, the Philippine Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia officially opened to the public on July 20, 2025, with a moving performance by the Philippine Madrigal Singers. Their vocal performance spiritually activated the exhibition space, invoking a shared sense of groundedness and collective reflection, and marking the formal inauguration of the country’s national representation at this year’s Architecture Biennale.
Soil-beings (Lamánlupa)
Curator: Renan Laru-an Exhibitor: Christian Tenefrancia Illi Venue: Arsenale
Dates: 20 July – 23 November 2025
Titled Soil-beings (Lamánlupa), the exhibition reimagines the foundational relationship between architecture and soil. Curated by Renan Laru-an, Soil-beings shifts focus from structure to substrate — challenging conventional architectural paradigms by presenting soil not as passive material, but as a living force with agency, memory, and power.
The exhibition invites architects, designers, and publics to engage soil as a dynamic actor in shaping the built world. By examining the interplay of soil-body and soil-time, Soil-beings reflects on how architecture can move toward more reciprocal and ethical relationships with the earth.
Terrarium
At the center of the exhibition is Terrarium, an installation by Christian Tenefrancia Illi, composed of nearly one thousand soil tiles gathered from various Philippine landscapes. Terrarium simulates microclimates and the slow but forceful processes of weathering and transformation — foregrounding soil’s role in shaping human and nonhuman futures alike. The vortex-like structure resists architectural finality, inviting viewers into the rhythms of decomposition and reformation.
Rather than positioning soil as object or resource, Terrarium allows it to be host, medium, and witness. In doing so, it expands the possibilities of spatial practice — blurring the lines between ecology, ritual, architecture, and care.
Prior to the exhibition’s presentation in Venice, a series of interdisciplinary workshops unfolded across the Philippines— Metro Manila, Batangas, Leyte, and South Cotabato. These gatherings, involving scientists, artists, Indigenous leaders, activists, and local residents, reframed soil as a cultural and political actor.
In Calatagan, Batangas, communities reimagined tool-making through discarded materials. In Baybay, Leyte, women and LGBTQI survivors of landslides dramatized grief and memory through performance. In Tampakan, South Cotabato, Blaan Indigenous participants used cooking, ritual, and storytelling to challenge extractive pedagogies. These exercises highlight soil’s capacity to foster imagination, resistance, and collective life.
As a living archive and collaborator, soil in Soil-beings exceeds its role as material — it becomes a force of encounter, instability, and potential.
Christian Tenefrancia Illi is a German-Filipino artist living and working between Berlin, Germany and Bacolod, Philippines. He is co-founder of Studio KIM/ILLI, a transdisciplinary platform working across art, architecture, and design. His work explores themes of migration, colonial legacies, and ecological intimacy through time based media and spatial installations. Terrarium is the culmination of months of research, collaboration, and site-specific experimentation across the Philippines and beyond.
The Philippine Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition is a collaborative undertaking of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), in partnership with the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA) and the Office of Senator Loren Legarda.
