Climate Wunderkammer’, aims to immerse ourselves in a multi-sensory experience of climate change impact while sharing practical solutions to address and adapt to it. It consists of a hybrid (physical and virtual), interactive and co-created installation.

The theme of the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale is about imagining different futures. Climate change and the accompanying ecological degradation is creating a world unknown to current generations of human which requires a mindset of resilience and hope if we are to navigate the challenges ahead. Designers are faced with three challenges. The first is to find ways to address the immediate challenges of specific, predictable disasters, the second is a more proactive adaptation of the built environment through measures such as diversity and adaptability to as yet unknown challenges, and the third, more profound challenge, is to transform our ways of being and doing so that we can create a better world from the ashes of the old. These three challenges inform the themes around which the project is structured.

The ‘Climate Wunderkammer’ anticipates what it means to live this unique experience in everyday life, learning from places already undergoing comparable transformations due to climate change. It shares the narratives, experiences, and emotions of the students of the participating universities derived from the tangible impacts of climate change. The students are young and might have limited memories of the past. However, they apprehend how rapidly transformations are happening. Young generations can help us make the “invisible visible” by comparing before and after the climate event hit our regions, communities, and places. The exhibition also presents the tools and solutions implemented to address climate change. 

We use multiple media to give back a multi-sensory experience: projections, sounds, tangible objects, and materials collected in the ‘Climate Wunderkammer’, a wall with bottles containing narratives and envisioned solutions; a central interactive table with the world map, an atlas illustrating climate hazards events and organized according to the taxonomy and the tags used in the repository.

The ‘Climate Wunderkammer’ will travel worldwide and generate an incremental repository of stories and solutions organized and categorized according to the climate-related risks taxonomy, world regions and places, and typology of adaptation or mitigation measures. The goal is to build a collaborative platform for sharing knowledge and enable learning from each other to simulate future climate scenarios and understand which challenges and actions we will have to face to fight and adapt to new conditions and become more resilient.