2022 is the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition’s 253rd iteration. Past visits have left me with a sense that many academicians are simply dialling it in, with the architecture room often stuffed with slick but uninspiring presentation models and large printouts you might expect to see at a meeting with the quantity surveyor.

As I enter the courtyard of this venerable institution from Piccadilly, I find myself wondering whether the responsibility for curating the rooms is seen as a gift or a poison chalice. Decisions about who to leave in and who to leave out, and who to just push to the corner, must be a minefield.

In a seeming acknowledgement that curating the architecture room (actually two rooms this year) is a difficult and lonely challenge for one person alone, Níall McLaughlin requested that he work with his fellow academician, the artist Rana Begum.