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World-renowned architect Douglas Cardinal was in Edmonton on Friday to announce an upcoming exhibition that will highlight indigenous architecture.
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Just before Canada’s inaugural Truth and Reconciliation Day, the Alberta-born cardinal made the announcement at the recently restored Pendennis Building at 9666 Jasper Ave., now owned by Métis by Lorraine Bodnarek and Ed Cyrankiewicz.
Unceded: Voices of the Land is scheduled to open in this reclaimed space in March, sponsored by RoadShowz, a new urban retail concept that supports indigenous initiatives, which has brought Cardinal on board as a consultant.
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Presented for the first time at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale, the world’s most prestigious architectural exhibition, Unceded: Voices of the Land showcases the work of 18 indigenous architects and tells their story through an immersive multimedia installation.
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The sweet colors of the Northern Lights are projected in geometric patterns that dance around the exhibition space and displays embedded in dedicated walls. The images of the beautiful buildings for which these architects are responsible are interspersed with scenes of moss-covered forests and salmon running down the rivers overlaid with wavy grid lines to demonstrate how these natural elements have been interpreted and translated in a representative way. . Flutes such as birdsong and the soft, rhythmic drum like a gentle and constant rain complete the story of our connection with the natural environment and the message that these works convey.
“We were made up of stories so they could be transported across the universe,” said Lewis Cardinal, co-director of Unceded YEG in Edmonton, who addressed the audience on Friday. “When you see yourself in someone else’s story, that’s when we must build relationships.”
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Stories and relationships, with each other and with the environment, are shared values that inform the work of these architects.
They first joined together to present themselves to the Arts Council of Canada to represent Canada at the Venice Biennale, and asked Cardinal to be their main presenter. These artists work in Canada and the United States, what indigenous cultures know as Tortuga Island, “because our people had no borders,” Cardinal explained.
From Venice, the exhibition moved to the Canadian Museum of History, a building that Pierre Elliott Trudeau commissioned Cardinal to design in 1989. Facing the Parliament along the banks of the Ottawa River, the museum’s curvilinear exterior echoes the river that flows, exemplifying Cardinal’s work that embraces our natural environment. It closed there in February of this year and Edmonton is the next destination for the facility. Cardinal said it would continue to New York, Portland, Oregon and California in the next few years.
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Born in Alberta in 1934 to Métis descent, Cardinal’s name may not be immediately recognizable, but his organic buildings are part of our local fabric. He built Telus World of Science and St. Albert Place, which houses the city government and also acts as an arts and cultural destination.
“Using the soft power of love is stronger than the hard power of force,” Cardinal affirmed, a message conveyed to her by the Elders who have always informed her work.
It is a lesson that Cardinal also gives to the world in these difficult times, insisting that we will only be successful if “we treat the earth and others with a lot of love and affection.
“We have to come out of our heart in everything we do.”
Reference-edmontonjournal.com