The Irish Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, opening May 26th, will explore the importance of the rural marketplace. Once the economic and social hubs of the countryside, many of these marketplaces have seen their roles diminished as rural regions experience accelerating change. Focusing on small towns with a population less that 5,000 people, the exhibition "aims to reassert the declining rural market square as a public place of social, political and cultural exchange, central to community cohesion."

Curated by a team of six young Irish architects and designers, Free Market will "act as a real market square, offering an engaging place to meet, to pause, to interact with the exhibits and openly exchange ideas. Evoking the character of the market space through the use of texture, proportion, color and sound, the pavilion will also include architectural models and drawings describing both the historic and contemporary conditions of these towns."

A newspaper entitled Free Market News will be distributed at the pavilion. It will feature collected writings on rural towns from nearly 40 expert contributors as well as 3 audio pieces—‘Sound Travels’—that give perspectives on the lived experiences of small towns. There will also be proposals for how design and planning professionals can best engage with the potential of these towns. These exhibits will be accompanied by soundscapes from rural Ireland broadcast by the pavilion’s own Free Market Radio. 

“Many of the challenges facing towns in Ireland are common to rural towns throughout the world" said co-curator Miriam Delaney. "We hope that by presenting Irish towns on the global stage in Venice, we can open a much needed conversation about the resilience of rural towns in an international context.” After the Biennale, Free Market will return to Ireland to tour small towns around the country in 2019, gathering stories and participants and continuing to evolve along the way.