Hundreds of black glass yams line the interior of this cylindrical pavilion in Victoria, Australia, designed by architecture studio Edition Office - Dezeen's Emerging architect of the year - and artist Yhonnie Scarce.
Titled In Absence, the pavilion explores the physical legacy of Aboriginal people's dispossession as a result of colonial land theft in the 18th century.
It's the winner of the National Gallery of Victoria's (NGV) fifth architecture competition, which invites practices to propose a temporary structure to occupy the Grollo Equiset Garden.

Sitting on a paved area of the garden, the cylindrical form of the pavilion are made of dark-stained Tasmanian hardwood and bisected with a full-height cut.
A path runs through the cut, aligned with with both the entrance to the museum and the bridge leading into the garden.
Inside, two opposing circular chambers are lined with hand-blown glass yams ? designed by Scarce ? that appear to be dripping down between the black planks of the interior.
The cut-through and the voids within each half of the pavilion are intended as a reference to the colonial strategy of "terra nullius" or "nobody's land".

Colonisers declared Aboriginal settlements in Australia empty to allow for their seizure, dispossessing indigenous communities of their land and livelihoods.

"In Absence speaks directly to the richness of architecture, agriculture and industry of the traditional custodians of this land, the presence of whi...