Loading Beta 2024

We are getting ready for the 5th edition of Beta - Timisoara Architecture Biennial and we can't wait to start the programme. We are looking forward to Loading Beta, the teaser event where the theme will be announced, discussed and debated and we will announce the dates and locations for this year's edition.

From 4-8 April, we are preparing the public in Timisoara for Beta events with a selection of workshops, discussions and social gatherings under the guidance of the curatorial team led by architect Oana Stănescu and together with fellows from the LINA platform.

Loading Beta aims to announce the exhibition title, present the theme and research directions, announce the dates and structure of the biennial, and introduce a series of contributors. We will be joined by

Maria Lisogorskaya is an artist, and a co-founding member of Assemble – award winning art, architecture and design studio based in London, UK. In her collective, and evolving individual art practice, Maria engages with people, places and materials at different scales: object making, spatial design and organisational strategy. Projects include Blackhorse Workshop in London; product development for Granby Workshop in Liverpool in 2015; concept and design for exhibitions such as the Wohnungsfrage at the HKW Berlin, Material Institute in New Orleans where she led the pilot for a new experimental Fashion & Textiles Department, cofounded with MONA, and most recently Assemble’s collaboration with Luma Atelier in Arles, integrating bio-based and waste stone materials with new workshop, laboratory and public space designs. Maria was the Assemble Visiting Professor of Masters Architecture in EPFL Switzerland 2020-2022, and has previously led Masters of Architecture studios at Central Saint Martins in London, and at Vienna TU. She has been a lecturer and critic in universities and art schools across the UK, Brazil, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Netherlands, South Korea, Sweden, Switzerland and the US. Maria is a WCMT fellow (with her research project Learning Through Making) and an Assemble Royal Academician since 2022.

Friedemann Heckel lives and works as an artist in Berlin. His work involves drawing as well as spatial interventions and has been shown in solo and group exhibitions at Sweetwater, Berlin and Los Angeles (2023, 2019), Galerie Thomas Fischer, Berlin (2023, 2018), with Transition Institute at Alte Münze, Berlin (2022), with Something Fantastic at Villa Massimo, Rome (2021), at Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2018), at Smart Objects, Los Angeles (2015) and at Lehmbruck-Museum, Duisburg (2012) among many others. He has curated numerous exhibitions such as „Intermarket - Sprachen digitaler Verfügbarkeit“ Ausstellungsraum Klingental, Basel (2014) and the residency-exhibition "Post-Studio Tales“ at District Kunst- und Kulturförderung, Berlin (2012). He published various artist books such as „Konversationen“, Edition Taube (2021) and „My Friends in Art“, Atelier Brenda (HC, 2023). Since 2016 he collaborates with Lukas Müller as HC, with whom he produced multiple exhibitions and taught at HFG Karlsruhe (2021). Since 2021 he is an artistic consultant for Kemmler Foundation.

Space Popular - Lara Lesmes and Fredrik Hellberg, both alumni of the Architectural Association in London (2011). They founded the practice in Bangkok (2013) and have been based in London and Spain since 2016. Space Popular creates spaces, objects, and events in both physical and virtual space, concentrating on how the two realms can blend together. The studio has completed buildings, exhibitions, public artworks, furniture collections, and interiors across Asia and Europe, as well as virtual architecture for the immersive internet.  Clients, collaborators, and commissioners include national institutions such as MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century Art, Rome, Italy; The Swedish Centre for Architecture and Design –ArkDes, Stockholm, Sweden; Royal Institute of British Architects, London, UK; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea; as well as independent galleries such as MAGAZIN, Vienna, Austria; and Sto Werkstatt, London, UK. 

Beta has been a member of the LINA platform since 2020, together with over 30 other institutions of architecture and culture in Europe. In this context we contribute to a joint programme, promoting emerging creatives selected through annual calls.

Two such groups will be in Timisoara this coming weekend: Dérive and FFRU.

Dérive is a practice operating between architecture, public space and urban strategies – based in Brussels (BE) and Rotterdam (NL). A collaboration founded by Hedwig van der Linden and Kevin Westerveld (ir. architects Delft University of Technology) with the motivation to provide air within complex transition challenges. They create space for dialogue and make connections by (co)creating local coalitions already during the research and design process. In doing so, we start from the qualities and resources of existing habitats.

Future Foodscapes Research Unit (FFRU)