Western Sahara
In 2015, Iwan Baan collaborated with architect Manuel Herz on the Western Sahara Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale, marking the first time a nation in exile was represented at the event. The pavilion reimagined the concept of the national pavilion, offering the Sahrawi people a platform on equal footing with recognized states while prompting reflection on alternative models of nationhood.
The Western Sahara, a former Spanish colony occupied by Morocco since 1975, remains one of the world’s last unresolved colonial territories. Most of its population, the Sahrawis, live in refugee camps in Algeria, yet proclaimed independence in 1976, with limited international recognition.
The pavilion brought visibility to the Sahrawi struggle, using architecture and visual storytelling to explore questions of sovereignty, displacement, and identity within the global architectural discourse.
