The Earth Compass reimagines the British Pavilion’s central gallery as a space of redirection of the coordinates of this colonial earth. The central impluvium structure – with its connections to both the classical past and traditional African buildings – brings Nairobi and London together through a celestial vision of change.
On the surrounding walls is a cartography of the carbon emissions brought about by geologic empires, with the keloid “scars” creating an inverted index of cumulative national carbon emissions from 1750–2023.
‘We evoke map making, which was ultimately a practice of empire – of drawing lines on maps and using it to claim ownership or reflect an Empire's power – so we see this room as posing another kind of cartography that is aligned to these possibilities of some decolonial repair.’
Curatorial Team