AD—WO Ghebbi at the 2023 Venice International Architecture Biennale

AD—WO Ghebbi AD—WO (NEW YORK, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA)
EMANUEL ADMASSU (B. ADDIS ABABA, ETHIOPIA, 1983); JEN WOOD (B. MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA, 1984)

The word “Ghebbi” means territory bounded by a wall or fence.

The “Ghebbi” is a space of relative stability.

There are houses, schools, gardens, workshops and shops.

Various materials are used to form the Ghebbi fence: eucalyptus trunks, rusty sheets, metal grills and masonry.

AD—WO Ghebbi AD-WO’s “Ghebbi” exhibition shows panels suspended in two Venetian Arsenal rope factory areas, separated by a brick wall.

An immersive space has been recreated between two monumental tapestries suspended on either side of a rope arch.

Each tapestry functions as a time landscape where the forms and materials of the Ghebbi dissolve.

One of the Arsenal’s walls is packed in bamboo scaffolding covered with a tarp linked to the structure with a rope, thus evoking frame on construction sites in Addis Ababa and the gradual suppression of the Ghebbi.

AD—WO Ghebbi