In one of the most internationally significant events of the year for design in our region, Australia Pavilion has now opened at the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale. The exhibition, titled HOME, invites visitors into a contemplative and sensory space rooted in Country and Indigenous cultural knowledge.

Led by Creative Directors Dr Michael Mossman, Professor Emily McDaniel and Jack Gillmer-Lilley, the exhibition explores the deeper meanings of home through First Nations practices and storytelling. The installation offers an immersive environment constructed from earth and plaster, drawing inspiration from Australia’s vast and storied natural landscapes. The project takes its fundamental inspiration from the yarning – and we spoke to Michael and Jack at length about this on the Stories Indesign podcast in March.

In the podcast episode, Michael and Jack share their personal journeys in architecture and discuss the question of Indigenising the built environment. They intriguingly describe the Venice project as being much broader in concept than the usual professional understandings of architecture. Instead, the project centres story-telling and the personal meaning of home. Above all, the Pavilion aims to give form to the idea of yarning and sharing.

Listen to the episode here on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify

Emily, meanwhile, comments that “HOME is a generous and timely offering to the Venice Architecture Biennale that will welcome visitors as active contributors and participants.”

HOME represents the first Australian pavilion at Venice since the 2023 Voice Referendum and follows First Nations artist Archie Moore’s award-winning installation at the 2024 Art Biennale. The 2025 architecture exhibition builds on this momentum, positioning Indigenous methodologies as foundational to contemporary Australian design discourse.

The design and development of HOME included the contributions of 125 students from 11 Australian universities. Spearheaded by a learning unit devised by Mossman and co-creative team member Elle Davidson at the University of Sydney, the program invited students to reflect on their own experiences of home. Participants created ‘living belongings’ – small objects that embody their personal stories and material reflections of home. These artifacts now surround the exhibition, offering tactile points of interaction for Biennale visitors.

The Creative Sphere, the group of First Nations designers and academics who shaped the project, views HOME as a vehicle for cultural continuity and architectural innovation. Their approach integrates Indigenous practices of knowledge-sharing, reciprocity and care for Country. The team includes architects, landscape designers, curators and community leaders, whose collaborative methodology challenges traditional western design hierarchies.

Commissioned by the Australian Institute of Architects and supported by Creative Australia along with academic and industry partners, HOME seeks to reframe architectural practice by centring Indigenous perspectives. It will remain open to the public throughout the duration of the Biennale, offering a reflective and evolving experience of what home can mean across cultures and continents, with a distinctively Australian character.

Photography
Peter Bennetts

Read about the Australia Pavilion by Buchan at the Osaka Expo