Elias Redstone has just got back from the Venice Architecture Biennale where he curated the Emergency Exit at the Polish Pavilion. Redstone previously worked as Senior Curator at The Architecture Foundation – a non-profit agency for contemporary architecture, urbanism and culture from 2003 to 2010 – and was awarded with the D&AD Global Design Award in 2006, and Winstone Churchill Fellowship in 2008. We caught up with him to find out what makes him tick.

Dazed Digital: You clearly have a great passion for architecture. Where did that begin?
Elias Redstone: After a studying a Masters degree in City Design & Social Science, I worked at The Architecture Foundation. I began curating exhibitions almost by accident. I was uninspired by how architecture was often exhibited and wanted there to be more exciting and experimental solutions to what an architecture exhibition could be. I launched a temporary gallery on Old Street and the first show I curated was an installation by a small practice called 6a Architects in collaboration with the fashion designers Eley Kishimoto. The end result, Hairywood, was a 6.3 metre high plywood tower, laser-cut with a pattern representing Rapunzel's hair that boasted an intimate viewing deck at the top. It was a piece of temporary architecture that the public could respond to in a very real way, an exhibition at 1:1 scale. From that point, I knew I had found something I really loved doing.

DD: Tell us about the international architects curatorial project?
Elias Redstone: I launched an international exchange programme at The Architecture Foundation for emerging architects in the UK and abroad (working with USA, Norway, Turkey, Italy and Poland to date) to help identify the best new architects, provide opportunities for the exchange of ideas and establish international networks. It often results in exhibitions and installation commissions. As part of the Norway exchange programme, I curated Moss Your City by Oslo-based architects PUSHAK at the London Festival of Architecture. The programme is a great way of introducing new talent to the UK.

DD: The exhibitions you have worked on are very varied...
Elias Redstone: I don’t have a formula for curating. For me it is as an opportunity to create something new, not just present existing work. Exhibitions often start from personal interests and research, or through developing a relationship with an architect or artist and providing them an opportunity to present their ideas to the public. I Shot Norman Foster came from my frustration at the quality and style of so much architectural photography. I wanted to encourage people to be more adventurous, to challenge the formality of architectural photography. It also gave me an opportunity to work with some great photographers and artists: Olivia Beasley, Poppy de Villeneuve, Norbert Schoerner, Chris Steele-Perkins, Jemima Stehli and Richard Wentworth. There is still so much territory to explore with how architecture is photographed and documented, but this was a step in the right direction.

DD: The images from the Emergency Exit show are amazing, could you talk us through the show? 
Elias Redstone: The installation is constructed from an aggregate of metal cages, more commonly used to contain birds and prevent flight, to create a new fictional sport within the urban context. The design makes reference to the forms of decaying Socialist-era sports monuments, such as a modernist ski-jump in Warsaw that is now in ruins. When the concrete has crumbled away, only the metal skeleton remains. During the test phase, visitors were able to climb to the top of the structure and jump out into artificially generated clouds. This leap into the unknown represented an ultimate freedom and urban escapism. It generated emotions, fear and desire, that took you to a place beyond the architecture itself.