ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Vers chez soi / Towards Home

 ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Vers chez soi / Towards Home

June 7, 2022 to February 12, 2023
Curated by Joar Nango, Rafico Ruiz, Taqralik Partridge, and Jocelyn Piirainen
Canadian Centre for Architecture
Montreal, QC

Beginning in the summer of 2020, Inuit Futures in Arts Leadership: The Pilimmaksarniq / Pijariuqsarniq Project worked with our partners at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) on an upcoming Indigenous-led exhibition and publication project on circumpolar arctic sovereignty through architectural design. From June 7, 2022 to February 12, 2023, ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui /Vers chez soi / Towards Home was exhibited in the Main Galleries of the CCA in Tiohtià:ke/Montréal, QC. Co-curated by Joar Nango and three Inuit Futures Mentors, Rafico Ruiz, Taqralik Partridge, and Jocelyn Piirainen, the project examines and celebrates design and building practices among Inuit, Sámi, and other Arctic communities to create self-determined spaces.

Inuit Futures Ilinniaqtuk Nicole Luke took up a position as a Research Assistant on the project in January 2021 during her final year as a Master of Architecture student at the University of Manitoba. Working closely with the curatorial team, Nicole’s main responsibility was to lead the design and execution of an Indigenous-led seminar and charette entitled, Futurecasting: Indigenous-led Architecture and Design in the Arctic. Indigenous architecture students and emerging practitioners from across Turtle Island, Inuit Nunangat and Sámpi territory will engage with Indigenous architects, designers, and knowledge keepers in a series of online seminars and discussions, concluding with a week-long workshop in Sápmi territory, Norway in Spring 2022. Throughout the project, participants will compile sketchbooks and create speculative design projects while being out on the land, which will be exhibited in ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui /Vers chez soi / Towards Home. Rather than striving for fully-resolved design projects, Futurecasting seeks to fill the gallery with ideas, imagination, and concepts of Indigenous architecture in the North, for the future of Indigenous architecture as defined by Indigenous practitioners.