In Other Words begins with a simple proposition: every act of communication involves a decision. Bringing together five practices, ABWAB considers what is made visible, what remains unspoken, what is translated, and how meaning is carried through material, form, gesture, image and the spaces we move through.

For 2026, ABWAB moves from its established pavilion format into a curated indoor group exhibition. Rather than presenting separate national or regional pavilions, In Other Words brings the five practices into a shared spatial environment. Continuing ABWAB's role as a commissioning platform, the exhibition supports the development and presentation of site-specific works through an ongoing, collaborative process between the participating practitioners and curators. Each project responds to the original brief while engaging with the wider exhibition and the relationships emerging between the works.

Featuring Dalia Rafeh, Grace Shieh, Kanaka Raghavan, Vivek Premachandran / UBIK and VARUSSI, founded by Owais Asif Khan and Samreen Junaid Wani, the exhibition brings together practices spanning art, design, architecture, writing, research and publishing. Across the five works, translation is understood not simply as movement between languages, but as a process through which knowledge and meaning are carried, transformed and reinterpreted across generations, cultures, materials and forms.

Together, the works create a choreography of encounters rather than a collection of discrete objects. As visitors move between, through and around them, legibility shifts according to proximity and perspective, with no single viewpoint offering a complete reading. Repetition, inherited knowledge and material experimentation emerge as connecting threads, revealing how meaning can be communicated through gestures, systems of making and forms of expression that resist conventional language. In Other Words invites audiences to consider not only what is communicated, but what is remembered, transformed or left unspoken.

Find out more about the commissions below:

VARUSSI |Taleem

Kanaka Raghavan | Cheent Devanagari

UBIK | Non/Sense

Dalia Rafeh | Shhhhhhhh

Grace Shieh | A Library of Paper Memories