Venice Biennale shines light on Indigenous design
In Venice last week, a few hundred people crowded into a room overheated by the Italian sun and humidity to watch the first-ever Indigenous performance company from Canada present work at the Venice Biennale.
Toronto-based Red Sky Performance’s Miigiis, a dance and music piece developed at Fort York and co-commissioned by the City of Toronto and The Bentway, interprets the power of nature, Indigenous prophecy and water trade routes from the Great Lakes to the Atlantic Coast.
It was a great Canadian moment that occurred during the opening of Unceded: Voices of the Land, this year’s historic Canadian contribution to the 2018 Venice Biennale of Architecture. It’s an event the global architecture community has their eyes on every two years, so Canada’s very public entry could be the start of a bigger and necessary role for Indigenous architects across Canada and in Toronto itself.
Unceded is a history lesson of, in part, how Indigenous knowledge was suppressed, and an exploration of the principals that guide an Indigenous way of practising architecture that respects community traditions and the natural environment. Famed architect Douglas Cardinal, designer of the Canadian Museum of History in Gatineau, Que., led a team of 18 Indigenous architects and designers who, in just a matter of months, put together a video and text-based presentation that will run until November.
This year’s Biennale was curated by Irish architects Yvonne Farrell and Shelley MacNamara and their theme was “Free Space,” a rather open idea that attempts to look at what architecture owes the public both physically and philosophically on this “fragile planet.” The theme is interpreted with varying degrees of fidelity by each national and institutional entry. For instance, Finland looked at public library design and Egypt at the informality of the Cairo streetscape.
Unceded’s exploration of our history and possible future of Indigenized Canadian architecture comes at an important time for the country. “Architecture weaves together threads of meaning and it facilitates and embodies connection,” says Eladia Smoke. “When a building connects with community, climate and the diversity of life around it, that place becomes strong, it comes to life.” Smoke is part of Cardinal’s Unceded team and was in Venice for the opening. She’s originally from Lac Seul First Nation near Sioux Lookout, Ont., and has family ties in Alderville First Nation, Winnipeg and Toronto, and practises architecture from her office in Hamilton.
When you think of the most celebrated kinds of architecture in Toronto, words like Victorian, Edwardian or even Second Empire often come up, as do later styles. All have roots outside of Canada, and though this city has an “Urban Indigenous Population” of more than 30,000, there’s little architectural sign of both that population today and its thousands of years of history here.
“Almost all architecture in Canada is colonial,” says Smoke. “Decisions on the application of capital to the built environment have been made by those who have the capital, not by its inhabitants. This was to the detriment of existing green infrastructure, our life support system, and our other-than-human relatives. An Indigenous approach would honour and involve natural systems in any development and it would also honour and involve Indigenous people.”
In his search for a distinct Canadian architecture, John Lyle, most famous for design- ing Union Station and The Royal Alex Theatre in Toronto, attempted a Canadian synthesis in the Runnymede library on Bloor St. West in the 1920s. Incorporating French, English and Indigenous styles, the building includes carved totem poles and animal references. It’s a beautiful and beloved building, but it’s a style that didn’t much catch on, and as there wasn’t an Indigenous architect behind it, it’s an echo of true Indigeneity.
In order to begin incorporating Indigeneity into Toronto and other Canadian cities, Smoke suggests that established architects working on traditional territories could contact Indigenous architects as sub-consultant partners, especially on projects that are public, directly serve Indigenous peoples, happen on First Nation land or are on unceded territories. “Indigenous architects, our traditional leaders and our women elders should lead and be directly involved in design decisions,” she says.
Smoke notes there are very few Indigenous architects in the GTA, but that could change if educators and funding entities worked to attract youth to the profession using all the resources available and let them know they won’t be alone. She points to Laurentian University’s McEwen School of Architecture in Sudbury as a model. Opened in 2013, and where she teaches, Smoke says they have on-staff elders circulating and participating in courses and studio projects, hire Indigenous faculty like herself and foster the recruitment of other faculty and students. They even build a birch bark canoe with every second year class.
The Daniels Faculty of Architecture at the University of Toronto has a number of efforts underway, including working with the Native Canadian Centre in Toronto, to develop a summer camp with the Toronto Region Conservation Authority to expose Indigenous youth to design fields and it has been holding lectures on reconciliation and architecture.
Unceded also brought nine Indigenous architecture students to Venice, including Kateri Lucier-Laboucan from Uof T, a contingent that was organized by James Bird, an incoming Daniels master’s of architecture student who is also a residential school survivor. Smoke would also like to see more funding for the Royal Architecture Institute of Canada’s new Indigenous Task Force.
“If we start in earnest now, in 10 years we could have a body of experienced architects who would start fostering the next generation,” says Smoke. Perhaps added momentum to the proliferation of Indigenous architects and architecture in Canada will be a legacy of Unceded making such a big mark at Venice this year.