Exhibition showcasing Indigenous architecture arrives in Edmonton

By Jeremy Appel, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter 

(ANNews) – An interactive multimedia exhibition telling the stories of Indigenous architects on Turtle Island has come to Edmonton seven years after its debut on the international stage at the Venice Architecture Biennale. 

The installation, Unceded: Voices of the Land, might “be the most important expression of Canadian Indigeneity ever presented in an exhibition outside of this country,” according to Mark O’Neill, the former president and CEO of the Canadian Museum of History, which hosted Unceded in 2019. 

Elder Douglas Cardinal, who designed the Canadian Museum of History, conceived of Unceded after he was selected to lead a team of Indigenous architects, including co-curators David T. Fortin and Gerald McMaster, to represent Canada in Venice in 2018. 

The exhibition, which presents the work of 18 Indigenous architects from across Turtle Island, is being displayed at City Centre Mall (West) until June 21. 

Featuring 20 different screens, the installation is designed for people to walk through “as if you’re moving along a river, going from one point to another,” said Lewis Cardinal, a distant cousin of Douglas who is a member of the Unceded board. 

The purpose of the exhibition, explained Cardinal, isn’t simply to showcase Indigenous architecture, but to explain how Indigenous architects are “applying their Indigenous history, worldview and cultures within the architecture that they’re designing.”

“We’re bringing in our Indigenous worldview,” he said. “We look towards the very essence and foundations of who we are as Indigenous people, like living in relationship to Mother Earth and not asserting domination and control.”

Indigenous ceremonies are intended to uphold this balance between human beings and nature, and that “balance and harmony” is reflected in “our structures,” Cardinal added.

“There’s all these deeper philosophical foundations in our world view to be applied in how we’re supposed to live and what we live in,” he said. 

The exhibition also details the challenges Indigenous architects faced and how they persevered. 

Douglas Cardinal, who is a residential school survivor, studied for a couple years at the University of British Columbia, but his professors told him he wouldn’t be accepted in the architectural industry. Cardinal ultimately obtained his degree from the University of Texas at Austin. 

“He was thinking outside of the walls already, so that’s how he really became who he was,” said Lewis Cardinal. 

Unceded was originally supposed to be displayed in Edmonton in 2022, but had to be delayed due to the Covid pandemic. 

After the exhibition ends in Edmonton, the plan is to showcase it in Calgary, which is where Douglas Cardinal was born. There are additional plans to bring the exhibition to Australia and Switzerland. 

For more information and to purchase tickets, visit https://www.unceded.org/.