2023 RAIC Architectural Journalism and Media Award | Royal Architectural Institute of Canada

2023 RAIC Architectural Journalism and Media Award

Ruovttu Guvlui / Towards Home - Canadian Centre for Architecture main gallery exhibition
Montréal,
QC
Award Category: 
President’s Award for Media in Architecture

ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Towards Home, an Indigenous-led exhibition and publication project, explores how Inuit, Sámi, and other communities across the Arctic are creating self-determined spaces. It is informed by the perspectives of a group of Inuit, Sámi, and settler co-curators who share the ambition to support northern Indigenous forms of sovereignty shaped by an understanding of the land as home. The project examines and celebrates practices of designing and building on the land that empower Indigenous communities. The co-curators acknowledge that the work of deepening architecture’s engagement with Indigenous designers and their communities needs to above all centre the knowledge and experiences of being at home on the land. 

ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Towards Home proceeds through a series of open and future-oriented questions to explore what it means for Indigenous peoples to design with and be at home on the land: What could home become across Inuit Nunangat, Sápmi, and the North more generally when defined by Indigenous architects and designers? Where do homelands begin? 

11 June 2022 to 26 March 2023 Main Galleries, Canadian Centre for Architecture   
Co-curators: Joar Nango, Taqralik Partridge, Jocelyn Piirainen and Rafico Ruiz   
Graphic design: FEED, Montréal 
Exhibition design: Tiffany Shaw, Edmonton 

Jury Comment(s): 

This research project collaboratively explores and celebrates many important considerations of Indigenous living through dynamic visuals and other forms of media, bringing a better awareness and understanding to both professionals and the public. It is a thoughtful and more complete narrative of the meaning of the Indigenous home and the future of design on Indigenous land.  

As an exhibition, Towards Home presents a wonderful diversity of spaces, elements, and intentions, bringing visitors into life in the North. Using both architecture and artefact, the CCA has created a beautiful, experiential exhibit that tells an important and valuable story, especially in light of the ongoing path towards truth and reconciliation with Indigenous Peoples, and our global efforts to live on—and preserve—an increasingly fragile planet.  

2023 Annual Awards Jury

Click for full version: 
Installation view, 2022

PHOTO - MATHIEU GAGNON / CCA

Installation view, 2022

PHOTO - MATHIEU GAGNON / CCA

Installation view, 2022

PHOTO - MATHIEU GAGNON / CCA

Installation view, 2022

PHOTO - MATHIEU GAGNON / CCA

Installation view, 2022

PHOTO - MATHIEU GAGNON / CCA

Installation view, 2022

PHOTO - MATHIEU GAGNON / CCA