Join us for the Toronto opening of ᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Towards Home, an Indigenous-led exhibition and publication project that explores how Inuit, Sámi, and other communities across the Arctic are creating self-determined spaces. It is informed by the perspectives 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. Caring for and living on the land is a way of being. The project examines and celebrates practices of designing and building on the land that empower Indigenous communities.

The opening will take place in the Gallery between 5:30 to 7pm.

With the Indigenous-led exhibition ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Towards Home, we have begun to explore how Inuit, Sámi, and other communities across the Arctic are creating self-determined spaces that rely on land-based practices.

The exhibition, which was originally on view at the CCA from June 2022 to March 2023, is now an invitation for students, faculty, and other local communities around the John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design to explore their understandings of home and how these can be in relationship with Northern lands and waters that connect rather than separate.

The exhibition presents newly commissioned works by asinnajaq, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory, Carola Grahn and Ingemar Israelsson, Geronimo Inutiq, Joar Nango, and Taqralik Partridge. Also embedded within the project is the Futurecasting: Indigenous-led Architecture and Design workshop series, convened in 2022 by Nicole Luke and Ella den Elzen in dialogue with Gunvor Guttorm at the Sámi University of Applied Sciences, which gathered nine emerging Indigenous designers to reflect on and to shape the future of Indigenous-led design. With this exhibition, the co-curatorial team is pursuing questions around Indigenous-led design through the CCA as a dialogue partner and convenor of this group of designers and artists. The Architecture and Design Gallery, as well as future touring venues, enter into this dialogue through their own commitments, whether in the form of teaching or public programming, that can tangibly support our shared efforts towards fostering practices of land-based design.

Co-curators:
Joar Nango, Taqralik Partridge (Associate Curator, Indigenous Art–Inuit Art Focus at the Art Gallery of Ontario), Jocelyn Piirainen (Associate Curator, Indigenous Ways and Decolonization at the National Gallery of Canada), Rafico Ruiz (Associate Director, Research, CCA)

Curatorial Assistant:
Ella den Elzen

Curatorial Research:
Kate Yeh Chiu, Megan Marin, Andrew Scheinman, Marie Kordovska

Contributors:
asinnajaq, Carola Grahn and Ingemar Israelsson, Geronimo Inutiq, Joar Nango, Taqralik Partridge, Laakkuluk Williamson Bathory

Co-organizers of Futurecasting: Indigenous-led Architecture and Design in the Arctic co-organizers, with CCA:
Gunvor Guttorm, Sámi allaskuvla / University of Applied Sciences
Nicole Luke, Inuit Futures Ilinniaqtuk

Participants in Futurecasting: Indigenous-led Architecture and Design in the Arctic:
Robyn Adams, University of British Columbia
Jenni Hakovirta, Oulu School of Architecture
Berit Kristine Andersen Guvsám, Sámi University of Applied Sciences
Laila Susanna Kuhmunen, Sámi University of Applied Sciences
Andrea McIntosh, Carleton University
Johanna Minde, Norwegian, University of Science and Technology
Reanna Merasty, Intern Architect, Number Ten Architectural Group
Naomi Ratte, University of Manitoba
Magnus Ánndaris Duolljá, University of Gothenburg

Inuktitut translation:
Elizabeth Qulaut

Inuktitut editing:
Raigelee Alorut

North Sámi translation:
Magne Ove Varsi

French translation:
Marine van Hoof, Luba Markovskaia, Frédéric Dupuy

French editing:
Nargisse Rafik

Graphic design:
FEED, Montréal

Exhibition design:
Tiffany Shaw, Edmonton

Design development:
Sébastien Maksymjuk, Anh Truong

Faculty team, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design:
Juan Du
Sifei Mo
Jeannie Kim

Installation team, John H. Daniels Faculty of Architecture, Landscape, and Design:
Jared Rishikof
Josh Sewell
Young-Mi Kim
Seth Martosh

The CCA gratefully acknowledges the support of the Ministère de la Culture et des Communications du Québec, the Canada Council for the Arts, Canadian Heritage, the Conseil des arts de Montréal, Nordic Culture Point, the Office for Contemporary Art Norway, and SAW Gallery.