Stories Indesign - Venice Architecture Biennale

Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify

Ahead of their journey to Europe for the 2025 Venice Architecture Biennale, we were delighted to welcome two members of Australia’s ‘Creative Sphere,’ a team of First Nations architects, designers and leading academics. Dr Michael Mossman is a Kuku Yalanji man and architect who lectures and researches at the University of Sydney School of Architecture Design and Planning; alongside him, Jack Gillmer-Lilley is a Worimi and Biripi Guri man as well as associate and First Nations lead at SJB Architecture, Sydney.

Photo by Hannah Walker.

Michael and Jack are Creative Directors alongside Emily McDaniel (above, middle), a Wiradjuri woman from the Kalari (Lachlan River) and a Professor of Practice in the School of Architecture at the University of Technology, Sydney. The pair joined Timothy Alouani-Roby at The Commons in Sydney for this podcast episode, recorded in March 2025 – just months before the Venice Biennale begins.

Meanwhile, the wider team includes four other Creative Sphere members. Kaylie Salvatori is a Saltwater Yuin Woman living and working on Gundungurra and Dharug lands, and a landscape architect and founding director of COLA Studio (Country Oriented Landscape Architecture). Clarence Slockee from the Mindjingbal/Cudgenburra clan of the Bundjalung Nation on the NSW far north coast is an accomplished musician and dancer, and Director of Jiwah. Elle Davidson is a Balanggarra woman from the East Kimberley with family connections to Captain William Bligh. Finally, Bradley Kerr is a Quandamooka man and architect living, working and learning on Wurundjeri Country, and Director of Naarm-based architecture and design studio Winsor Kerr as well as curator and chair of the Australian Institute of Architects’ First Nations Advisory Committee.

The 19th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale will be held from Saturday 10th May to Sunday 23rd November 2025. A prototype construction of HOME was recently created with rammed earth at the University of Sydney, and it will be recreated in Venice before the exhibition then returns to Australia.

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