The co-commissioners of the United States pavilion for the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale are the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) and the University of Chicago. They jointly announced today that the theme of their exhibition will be “Dimensions of Citizenship.” It will be co-curated by Niall Atkinson, the University of Chicago; Ann Lui, of SAIC; and Los Angeles–based critic and curator Mimi Zeiger. The goal—the commissioners say—is “to present the United States as a site for critical research and practice in architecture. They claim that it is at the intersection of old and new forms of community engagement, political action, and public policy. Globalization, digital technology, and geopolitical transformations are continuing to challenge conventional notions of citizenship across scales.”

Zeiger told AN that the curators are currently collecting a robust group of practitioners to explore the theme of citizenship and they will be announced at the end of September. “We are interested in citizenship on a variety of levels from the personal to the national to the cosmos,” Zeiger said. “Given the current political climate, we are interested in establishing a polemic that is larger than any particular administration.” The exhibition in Venice opens on May 26 and runs through November 25, 2018.