for Venice Architecture Biennale 2025
Impossible Conversations with Carlo Ratti
An homage to Franz Kafka’s Letter to His Father and a paraphrase of Carlo Ratti’s own Impossible Conversations project. Created by the Architectural Thinking School for Children, this work reflects on the one-sided dialogues between children and the curator.
Originally invited to the Biennale, the children were later denied the right to participate — for being too young ...
Originally invited to the Biennale, the children were later denied the right to participate — for being too young ...
The starting point of the project was the selection of The Architectural Thinking School for Children’s proposal through the Biennale’s open call. This was a moment of great joy for both children and parents. The School began developing its project, INTELLIGENS PLAY LAB, involving 15 children and 5 educators.
In parallel, over the course of eight months, our team was engaged in continuous bureaucratic correspondence with various members of the Biennale Curatorial Team, the Biennale staff, and Carlo Ratti himself. We were repeatedly asked to fill out numerous forms and re-explain the essence of our project to an ever-changing group of coordinators.
In the end, the INTELLIGENS PLAY LAB project was fully prepared to be presented at the Biennale and had already been shown to the public in Lisbon. Children and parents were eagerly anticipating the trip; families had booked flights and reserved accommodations.
Then, just one month before the opening of the Biennale, during a video call with the Biennale team, we received the shocking news: according to the Biennale’s official regulations, children would not be allowed to participate. We were told that we were considered regular customers, and thus, the children and their families were simply invited to purchase tickets and attend the exhibition as ordinary visitors. We made several attempts to contact the curatorial team and Carlo Ratti himself to resolve this strange misunderstanding, but we never received a response.
Impossible Conversations with Carlo Ratti is an homage to Franz Kafka’s Letter to His Father, where Kafka writes a letter he will never receive a response to, attempting to reach out to a figure of authority — his father — who has become a symbol of unreachable, absolute power for him. Impossible Conversations with Carlo Ratti is also a paraphrase of Carlo Ratti’s own project Impossible Conversations for the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025, in which contemporary authors engage in dialogue with historical figures through the use of Artificial Intelligence.
In parallel, over the course of eight months, our team was engaged in continuous bureaucratic correspondence with various members of the Biennale Curatorial Team, the Biennale staff, and Carlo Ratti himself. We were repeatedly asked to fill out numerous forms and re-explain the essence of our project to an ever-changing group of coordinators.
In the end, the INTELLIGENS PLAY LAB project was fully prepared to be presented at the Biennale and had already been shown to the public in Lisbon. Children and parents were eagerly anticipating the trip; families had booked flights and reserved accommodations.
Then, just one month before the opening of the Biennale, during a video call with the Biennale team, we received the shocking news: according to the Biennale’s official regulations, children would not be allowed to participate. We were told that we were considered regular customers, and thus, the children and their families were simply invited to purchase tickets and attend the exhibition as ordinary visitors. We made several attempts to contact the curatorial team and Carlo Ratti himself to resolve this strange misunderstanding, but we never received a response.
Impossible Conversations with Carlo Ratti is an homage to Franz Kafka’s Letter to His Father, where Kafka writes a letter he will never receive a response to, attempting to reach out to a figure of authority — his father — who has become a symbol of unreachable, absolute power for him. Impossible Conversations with Carlo Ratti is also a paraphrase of Carlo Ratti’s own project Impossible Conversations for the Venice Architecture Biennale 2025, in which contemporary authors engage in dialogue with historical figures through the use of Artificial Intelligence.
Team
Anton Itskov-Vinnik, David Vysotsky, Eduard Pestov, Eva Leshchenko, Filipp Kovalevich, Ivan Plevko, Karina Khudyakova, Kira Zakhlyestina, Malaniya Pospelova, Mark Pikul, Rita Ryazantseva, Rodion Filonenko, Stepan Plevko, Varvara Lomteva, Yulianna Borisenko.
Curated by: Alexander Novikov, Elena Karpilova
Editing and Special Effects: Anton Mekh
Curated by: Alexander Novikov, Elena Karpilova
Editing and Special Effects: Anton Mekh
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Contact
novikov@aschool.by
karpilova@aschool.by
karpilova@aschool.by
Copyright © 2025 ATSFC Association – The Architectural Thinking School for Children
