Angirramut \/<\/em> Ruovttu Guvlui \/ Towards Home<\/em> at the Canadian Centre for Architecture (CCA) offers a rare glimpse into the world-making possibilities of home upended from flattened representations readily available elsewhere. Co-curated by Joar Nango, Taqralik Partridge, Jocelyn Piirainen, and Rafico Ruiz, this in-depth, multi-vocal project centres around self-determined, Indigenous space and place-making informed by understandings of the land as home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the entrance to the exhibition, an installation by Tiffany Shaw functions as a threshold through which to contemplate a constellation of shelters. The unassuming snaking form constructed from plywood and lumber, accommodating jackets, boots, snowshoes, a small freezer, braided grass, and numerous other provisions, recalls a communal hunting, fishing, or domestic space. The surrounding orange, pink, and purple ombr\u00e9 walls envelop the assemblage in a sunrise. In one of the extensive online articles related to the exhibition, Shaw describes the installation as a porch: \u201cFor me, the porch is about having people enter our worlds\u200a\u2014\u200athe Indigenous co-curators\u2019 worlds\u200a\u2014\u200ato feel welcome, to feel like they\u2019re entering a space different from what they would expect of a building that looks like the CCA.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Joar Nango\u2019s S\u00e1mi Architectural Library<\/em> (2019, 2022) acts as one of the exhibition\u2019s conceptual anchors. The sprawling installation of books, domestic and other objects, textiles, images, sculptures, and video supported on wooden structures suggests an improvisational bent and a material rebellion aimed at architecture\u2019s colonial binds. Although there are somewhat conventional library components on view\u200a\u2014\u200aincluding a low wooden crate functioning as a table, draped with fabric and fur, on which various books are arranged, with a hand-written sign reading \u201cArchitectural Theory\u201d\u200a\u2014\u200athe S\u00e1mi Architectural Library<\/em>\u2019s multiplicity of materialities constructs alternate legibilities and establishes architectural vocabularies outside of dominant architectural modes, recasting how space might be authored, physically and otherwise. Nango\u2019s alluringly detailed installation speaks to his ongoing interest in autonomous S\u00e1mispaces and possibilities for Indigenous communities to define and manage for themselves built forms that serve needs and livelihoods established within<\/em> rather than those imposed by colonial forces from without<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Of the many compelling through-lines offered in Towards Home<\/em>, the attention given to liminal and interstitial spaces reads as essential. Whether asinnajaq\u2019s (with Tiffany Shaw) Nuna<\/em> (2022) referencing an igloo covered in fabric printed with images of moss and lichens to convey home as a provisional, shifting retreat for different seasons or Taqralik Partridge\u2019s lightbox images of often unheeded spaces where Inuit live, travel, and form community in Iqaluit, Nunavut, and Dorval, the exhibition trains our attention toward interspatial, in-between, and humble yet empowered spaces where home is made and deeply felt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"Vers-chez-soi_vestibule\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/107_CR02_Bronstein_Vers-chez-soi_vestibule_14.jpg\")
Vestibule, installation view, Canadian Centre for Architecture, 2022.
Photo: Mathieu Gagnon \u00a9 CCA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"Vers-chez-soi_samilibrary\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/107_CR02_Bronstein_Vers-chez-soi_samilibrary_74.jpg\")
S\u00e1mi Architectural Library<\/em>, 2019, installation view, 2022.
Photo: Mathieu Gagnon \u00a9 CCA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n![\"nuna\"](\"https:\/\/esse.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/107_CR02_Bronstein_nuna.jpg\")
Nuna<\/em>, installation view, Canadian centre for Architecture, 2022.
Photo: Mathieu Gagnon \u00a9 CCA<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n