Free Market | Irish Pavilion At The Venice Architecture Biennale 2018

Free Market is the Irish Pavilion exhibition at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2018 (Biennale Architettura 2018). The exhibition will highlight the generosity, humanity and possibility in the common spaces of Ireland’s market towns. Small town market places, once the economic and social hubs of rural Ireland have undergone fundamental change and many have seen their function as places of exchange and congregation diminished. Free Market proposes to reclaim these places of interaction and community. We propose to build upon the research of our team and others, and on the lived experience of these spaces, to re-imagine the shared urban territory of the small town market place. Free Market will return to Ireland to tour small towns around the country in 2019, gathering stories and participants and continuing to evolve along the way.