May 10–November 23, 2025
Venice
Italy
The Commissioners of the Nordic Countries Pavilion have released a video trailer previewing the debut of Teo Ala-Ruona’s exhibition created for the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.
Developed with a multidisciplinary team and curated by Kaisa Karvinen for Architecture & Design Museum Helsinki, Industry Muscle: Five Scores for Architecture continues Teo Ala-Ruona’s work on trans embodiment and ecology, expanding his focus into architecture.
The video was shot on location at a concrete factory in Helsinki, where the installation for the Venice exhibition was constructed using concrete, steel, and a sports car. In the video, we catch glimpses of the performance, featuring Teo Ala-Ruona, Kid Kokko, and Caroline Suinner. The video was produced by Cocoa and directed by Taito Kawata, whose previous work includes the Netflix series Dance Brothers.
Performances will take place throughout the Vernissage days of the Venice Architecture Biennale:
Inauguration: May 8, 2:30–3pm / Live performance: May 8, 3–5pm / Live performance: May 9, 3–5pm / Live performance: May 10, 3–5pm.
Teo Ala-Ruona has assembled a multidisciplinary team that includes performers Romeo Roxman Gatt, Kid Kokko and Caroline Suinner to enact five scores that serve as critical prompts for future architectural practice informed by the trans experience of the built environment.
Industry Muscle: Five Scores for Architecture considers the trans body as a lens through which to examine modern architecture and the built environment, establishing a dialogue with the celebrated architecture of the Nordic Countries Pavilion, designed by Sverre Fehn and completed in 1962. By contrasting Fehn’s canonical work of modernism against an alternative model for architectural practice that takes the trans body as its starting point, the exhibition will offer insights into the relationships between architecture, the body, and fossil-fuel based culture.
In Industry Muscle the audience is invited to consider the Nordic Pavilion, as well as architecture more broadly, as a stage for sociopolitical norms that are embedded in fossil-based culture. The staging of the exhibition places the visitor at the centre of an architectural experience where all participants are on display, enacting everyday performances.
Industry Muscle unfolds through five speculative scores that serve as critical prompts for future architectural practice. Scores are used in performance art as tasks, notations, and exercises that provide instructions for a performer. The exhibition brings this concept to the field of architecture, using the following themes:
Impurity: Questioning the modernist ideal of purity inherent in both architecture and lifestyle. Decategorisation: Challenging practices based on categorisation and separation within the built environment. Performance: Investigating how architecture and spatial design shape everyday performances of gender and identity. Techno-body: Recognizing the dynamic interaction between body, building, and technology, while advocating for bodily autonomy. Re-use: Approaching the trans body as a form of reuse and a tool for ecological thinking.
Collaboration plays a central role in Teo Ala-Ruona’s work. For Industry Muscle, he has assembled a multidisciplinary team of collaborators including architect A.L. Hu, set designer and artist Teo Paaer, sound designer Tuukka Haapakorpi, dramaturge Even Minn, visual artist Venla Helenius, fashion designer Ervin Latimer, graphic designer Kiia Beilinson and performers Kid Kokko, Caroline Suinner, and Romeo Roxman Gatt.
Teo Ala-Ruona said: “Industry Muscle proposes a model for architecture grounded in my artistic practice and experience as both a trans person and a performance maker who uses the body as a site of research. The work explores how conceptions of embodiment have been shaped through fossil culture as it manifests in modernist architecture. The Nordic Pavilion offers an incredibly compelling context for exploring these themes together with the team.”
Kaisa Karvinen, Curator of the Nordic Countries Pavilion on behalf of Architecture and Design Museum Helsinki, said:
“The transformative potential of the stage and performance is central to Ala-Ruona’s work. In the field of performance art, bodily experience is studied, explored and valued in a way that is meaningful also for contemporary architectural practice. I’m fascinated by the way Ala-Ruona has approached architecture by using the techniques of theatre, expanding its practice into architecture.”
The Nordic Countries Pavilion is commissioned by an alliance formed of Architecture & Design Museum Helsinki (Finland), The National Museum of Norway and ArkDes (Sweden). The three commissioning bodies rotate the leadership of the commissioning process, which for the 19th International Architecture Exhibition has been led by Architecture & Design Museum Helsinki.
Media contacts: For further information and interviews about the Nordic Countries Pavilion at the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, please contact ING Media: Ben James / ben.james@ing-media.com / T + 44 (0) 7534 970 728
Video trailer directed by Taito Kawata
Director: Taito Kawata / Executive Producer: Ilona Malinen / Director of Photography: Tuomas Nurmi / Production Manager: Samuli Hilkamo / Production assistant: Juuli Nyberg / Gaffer: Eemi Lehto / Light technician: Tiia Hyyryläinen / First AC: Henrik Leppänen / MUAH: Emma Janhonen / Grip: Oskari Jokinen / Grip assistant: Pepe Uimonen / Set Design: Teo Paaer / Music & Sound: Akseli Soini; El Camino, Petja Virikko; El Camino / Performers: Teo Ala-Ruona, Caroline Suinner, Kid Kokko / With special thanks to: Jan Tuomisto; Studio Lupara Oy, Angel Rentals; Roope Ruuska, Bongobongo; Joonas Saine, Vihdin Betoni Oy. / Production company: Cocoa @wearecocoa.
