On World Day Against Child Labour, Grace Farms Foundation’s Design for Freedom Display Featured in the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia Brings Awareness to the Urgent Humanitarian Need for Architecture to Address Forced and Child Labor in the Global Building Materials Supply Chain
In recognition of World Day Against Child Labour, Grace Farms Foundation and its Design for Freedom movement call for the urgent need to address forced and child labor in the global building materials supply chain.
Launched by Grace Farms Founder and CEO, Sharon Prince, Design for Freedom currently is represented in the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Intelligens. Natural. Artificial. Collective., which is curated by Carlo Ratti and highlights pivotal architectural themes over the past 50 years. The Design for Freedom installation, on view through November 23, 2025 in the Intelligens CANON section of the exhibition, amplifies the movement’s three principles – to address embedded forced and child labor, pursue ethical decarbonization, and prioritize circularity. Design for Freedom’s advocacy for circularity as a means of reducing the risk of forced labor also corresponds with Carlo Ratti’s Circularity Manifesto for this year’s Biennale.
Left to right: Chelsea Thatcher, Grace Farms’ Chief Strategic Officer and Founding Creative Director, Studio Cooke John’s Principal, Nina Cooke John, and Sharon Prince, CEO and Founder, Grace Farms Foundation.
Sharon Prince said, “We are honored to participate in the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, where we are among many incredible projects in the main exhibition and represented in La Biennale Library. We have an audacious mission to remove forced and child labor from the building materials supply chain. Every building tells a story of humanity — either of dignity or exploitation. The Design for Freedom movement lays out a clear pathway for human dignity. We want to inhabit a world that does not accept or normalize exploitation as a means to an end.”
Globally, 28 million people are held in forced labor, and 160 million children ages 5 to17 are child laborers. Construction is one of the largest industries at the highest risk of forced labor. The display featured in Intelligens CANON, titled Design for Freedom: Eradicating forced and child labor from the building materials supply chain, focuses on the global concrete supply chain and the unethical labor practices that undermine the integrity of the building industry. Through compelling photography, data points, Grace Farms’
Design for Freedom Pilot Project research process, and case studies, the display illustrates the reality of forced and child labor, as well as with innovative partnerships that are modeling supply chain tracing.
Located in the Arsenale section, location 143, in Venice, Italy, the display is adapted from the With Every Fiber exhibit on view long-term at Grace Farms, with new content developed specifically for the Biennale. Designed by Studio Cooke John Architecture + Design and Pentagram and curated by Chelsea Thatcher, Grace Farms’ Chief Strategic Officer and Founding Creative Director, the exhibit calls attention to the materials that make up the built world and features rotations of art, research, tactile experiences, and audio recordings that delve into the supply chains of common building materials. A virtual exploration of the With Every Fiber exhibit at Grace Farms is available online. Thatcher and Cooke John also recently spoke about how a portion of the exhibit is included in the Intelligens CANON in the most recent episode of the Design for Freedom podcast.
Chelsea Thatcher said, “Grace Farms is grateful to Carlo Ratti for bringing Design for Freedom to the Intelligens CANON and for recognizing how architecture and design can contribute to addressing global issues. This is the first time With Every Fiber has traveled beyond Grace Farms and features new content developed specifically for the Biennale. We are hopeful we can create a better world with visionaries like Carlo Ratti, who said, ‘By virtue of being stated, explored, and debated, a concept will necessarily make an impact. Provocation is a better metric than certainty, for ideas both positive and negative.’”
As part of Grace Farms’ participation in the 19th International Architecture Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, its case study on Shadow of a Face by Studio Cooke John, has been donated to La Biennale Library, which since 2009 has been an integral part of the Central Pavilion at the Giardini. The Library specializes in contemporary art, with a special focus on documentation and deepening of the Foundation’s activities, preserving all the catalogs of Biennale activities and collecting bibliographic material related to the disciplines of architecture, visual arts, cinema, dance, photography, music, and theater. Thanks to its book heritage of more than 151,000 volumes and 3,000 periodicals, it is one of the leading libraries of contemporary art in Italy.
