The British Council has announced the team selected to represent the UK at the 20th International Architecture Exhibition of the 2027 Venice Biennale. The 2027 British Pavilion will feature a UK–Malaysia collaboration marking 70 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. This initiative builds on the success of the UK–Kenya collaboration at the 2025 British Pavilion, which received La Biennale’s Special Mention award.
The open call for the 2027 edition invited proposals that challenge contemporary architecture and respond to the British Council’s UK–Malaysia Human-Nature programme, which explores the relationships between people, place and the natural environment. From a shortlist of six proposals, the selected team was chosen by a panel of architects, educators and cultural professionals from the UK and Malaysia, chaired by Sevra Davis, Director of Architecture, Design and Fashion at the British Council.
The project will be led by UK-based curators Dr Guan Lee and Mike Lim, together with a curatorial team comprising Maria McLintock and Ben Swaby Selig. They will collaborate closely with Penang-based artisans Ng Chi Wang, Lee Shao Chin and Koh Eng Keat. The commission will explore impermanence in architecture, diaspora culture and the ways migration reshapes living traditions in Malaysia and across the world.
Drawing on Malaysian traditions of ritual paper architecture, the installation will reference temporary structures made from recycled paper on bamboo frames. It will be inspired by the Hungry Ghost Festival, where ceremonial structures are created, used and then released.
Sevra Davis, Director of Architecture, Design and Fashion at the British Council, said the project marks 70 years of diplomatic relations between the UK and Malaysia and brings together architecture, ritual and cultural memory. She added that it builds on the success of the UK–Kenya collaboration at the 2025 British Pavilion and continues the British Council’s commitment to fostering cultural connection through the Venice Biennale.
The appointed curatorial team said they are honoured to bring the Festival of Hungry Ghosts to the British Pavilion at La Biennale di Venezia 2027 as a celebration of diasporic culture and living traditions shaped by migration. They explained that the festival reflects acts of care for ancestors and wandering spirits, and is grounded in a construction tradition where impermanence is seen as a guiding logic rather than a limitation. They added that the idea of building for disappearance represents one of the most radical forms of architectural thinking today.
Jazreel Goh, Country Director Malaysia at the British Council, said the UK–Malaysia collaboration at the 2027 Venice Biennale offers an important opportunity to celebrate creative exchange between both countries on the global stage in conjunction with 70 years of diplomatic relations. She noted that the project’s focus on ritual architecture, migration and regenerative design is timely and relevant.
Pei Tsen Yeoh, Director of YTL Construction and member of the selection committee, said that after a rigorous selection process, the chosen proposal presents a sensitive and culturally grounded approach that successfully balances conceptual ambition with practical delivery. She added that framing ritual architecture as a model for regenerative futures gives the project both poetic resonance and contemporary relevance.
The Selection Committee for the 2027 British Pavilion brings together experts from architecture, design, culture and heritage institutions across the UK and Malaysia, chaired by Sevra Davis of the British Council.
The curatorial team includes Dr Guan Lee, a Malaysia-born architect and academic who leads Grymsdyke Farm and teaches at University College London and the Royal College of Art, with research focused on process-led design and material experimentation. Mike Lim, a British architect of Malaysian heritage, is co-founder of IDK, a London and Paris-based studio responsible for major cultural projects including the David Bowie Centre at V&A East Storehouse and upcoming commissions at Tate Modern and the V&A.
Maria McLintock is a curator, writer and lecturer with experience at leading institutions including the Design Museum London, MoMA New York and Ikon Gallery. She also works on research examining migration systems and will begin a PhD at The Bartlett, UCL. Ben Swaby Selig is a London-based curator and sound artist at V&A East whose practice explores material culture, technology and public engagement through exhibitions and installations across the UK.
The Malaysia-based artisan team includes Ng Chi Wang and Lee Shao Chin of Lian Yin Art in Penang, specialists in traditional paper and bamboo craft, and Koh Eng Keat of 358 Custom Effigies Workshop in George Town, who continues a family tradition of producing intricate paper effigies and sculptural works, some of which have been exhibited internationally.
Together, the collaboration brings together architecture, craft and cultural memory to explore how traditions of making and impermanence can inform contemporary architectural thinking on a global stage.
