Fillip

In Conversation
David Thomas and Joar Nango

Joar Nango – When I first met you in Winnipeg, we talked for hours about Indigenous architecture and what kind of meaning this type of discourse could carry. From my personal experience as a Sámi architect, working mostly within my home grounds in Northern Europe, it has been such an eye-opening experience to visit Canada and learn from these shifts of perspective. I see a lot of potential in the forging of these international Indigenous conversations and relations, creating grounds and autonomous platforms within an otherwise colonized world of architecture. The lack of network and community for me to seed and grow my thoughts has always been the biggest challenge in my practice. Meeting you felt like meeting a long-lost family member. I also got to know a handful of other younger architects during my stay in Manitoba. I developed an impression of Winnipeg as a leading hub for developments in and discourse on Indigenous architecture in Canada. Can you tell me what it means to be an Indigenous architect situated in Winnipeg, Manitoba, today?

David Thomas – There are a lot of issues of colonization that we deal with daily. One is the impoverished housing conditions on reserves located just an hour away from Winnipeg.

This problem isn’t the fault of Indigenous communities. It’s brought on by the formation of Canada and federal policies. These inequalities are devastating. It’s important to remember that the health of our Indigenous people reflects the health of the whole of Manitoba as well as Canada. Every First Nation issue is a Canadian issue as well.

Every day I am thankful for the privilege of getting an education and being able to experience two worlds—allowing me to make connections between my two experiences. For me, architecture becomes a tool of communication with our Indigenous communities. At the same time, architecture is also a tool actively used by our oppressors. It is a tool for colonization. It was through architecture that our cities were built and our land was taken away from us.

Architecture can be many things. I ask: Is architecture innocent? Can it ever be a neutral profession or activity? We, as Indigenous people, were marginalized. Now, through the growth of Indigenous architecture, we are taking the tools in our hands and turning the tables around, creating projects that are deep and meaningful.

I’m especially positive about the younger generations and the space they manage to claim. It really is exciting to see the growth of Indigenous practitioners in the field of architecture.

Nango – During my stay in Winnipeg, I was fascinated by the urban Indigenous communities of Winnipeg. I usually connected the reservation systems with something more rural, and caused by the colonizers forced displacement of Indigenous groups to unvalued land. But, in Winnipeg, I was exposed to these reservation areas also being situated within an urban cityscape. I wanted to ask you a bit more about these kinds of areas, and also how their development and planning have been dealt with in terms of Indigenous sovereignty and ownership.

Thomas – Manitoba has sixty-four First Nations and the largest urban Indigenous population in Canada. In fact, several urban reserves are in the centre of Winnipeg. We also have a very high population growth: non-Indigenous growth is 3 percent, but for Indigenous people, it’s 17 percent. In that way, you can perhaps say our population is well positioned to claim the future as ours (laughs).

I guess you could also say that about the past.... The idea of owning the land didn’t exist in Indigenous culture. And in some respects it is even disrespectful to use this word “land,” because it talks about possession and owning something. We use the word “mother,” which has another understanding embedded in it.

There is a feeling when you go to these urban reserves: it’s like going home—the energy and the way everyone carries themselves. There is something different on these sites. There is also development. Yesterday, I was driving through the Madison urban reserve, and I noticed the two elevator towers of this new large hotel project shooting up from the ground. From far away, I could still see this new building piercing through the skyline of Winnipeg. It made me think about my kids, who will grow up with Indigenous skylines coming up around them.

Nango – Yes, I know what you’re talking about. These urban development projects directed by Indigenous communities have been so interesting for me to learn about. But I also find it a bit more accessible to approach. These kinds of projects have been a bit challenging for me as an outsider to detect or to find information on. I know you also are involved in large-scale development projects yourself, right?

Thomas – We are just at the foundation of developing 160 acres of land on the former Kapyong Barracks site, right in the centre of Winnipeg. It has a very interesting story to it—as prime real estate, in the wealthy centre of Winnipeg. It was zoned an agricultural area in the first half of the twentieth century, then used by the military as army barracks in the latter half of the century, and now it’s freed up to become Naawi-Oodena.

The Treaty Land Entitlement order, which in the Prairie provinces enables the creation of reserves or the addition of land to existing reserves, allowed us to achieve the urban land act. But to get it we had to fight, and even sue Canada in court, in a sixteen-year battle. We ended up with over 160 acres. It is frustrating that we had to waste years fighting for a right that was ours in the first place. There was never any compensation given to us for the cost of these court proceedings, and it was never addressed in the court decision.

Today, the Treaty One government has established a corporation that fully owns this land area. It is also developing a constitution for these land areas and it is governed by an Elder and youth council. It’s seen as a sovereign land area, and we are developing our own laws and land codes.

It’s interesting how the area is sovereign and Indigenously governed. It was an empowering experience to be involved in—shaping the master plan for this kind of project.

Nango – Yes, it’s interesting, the autonomy on so many different levels of the projects. I’m curious to know what forms these types of Indigenous plans take on. Are these kind of large-scale, entrepreneur-like processes so grounded in capitalist and colonial ways that it becomes difficult to create an alternative narrative rooted in Indigeneity?

Thomas – Designs at these kinds of levels are huge processes, and therefore challenging to change. I designed the first master plan. It has since been reworked by a hired firm of urban planners in close collaboration with an Indigenous consultancy group. We want to create a strong Indigenous presence on the site. In the master plan, we worked in a lot of different types of zonings. Residential and commercial zones. We are building an arena for hockey, a cultural campus for education and learning, an interpretative centre, and an Indigenous gathering space. Also a place for Pow Wows and a war museum. On top of these official zoning categories, we also want to experience another level of Indigenous storytelling, where each zone can tell its own story. There is a strong will to make this happen within the group, and since all the members are Indigenous I think it will be possible.

There is a lake nearby that has the shape of a buffalo hoof—it looks like a thousand-foot-tall buffalo walked right through the site. We had a group of twelve landscape architecture students from the University of Manitoba work for three months to further develop the master plan. This was really impressive and powerful as a tool. It was truly inspiring seeing the design being developed—in detail right down to the paving and the shrubs.

Nango – Interesting to hear about these kinds of developments within Canadian cities. You don’t see much of these things happening in Sápmi, although some new political will toward claiming space in more urban contexts can be seen. These initiatives are smaller and more cultural in scale, where a coming together of educated (middle-class) Sámi peers is a driving force. I think it’s so interesting to hear about this development, because what we really need are these spaces where Indigenous people have autonomous control over the development of the space itself.

Can you say something about these tendencies on a more general level? And are there any other similar types of projects happening elsewhere in Canada?

Thomas – It is not about casinos or revenue—these types of projects are deeply and fundamentally addressing inequalities. There is another hundred-acre project in Vancouver, by the University of British Columbia, coming up. And we will see more of these Indigenous-led urban developments in the future. The real powerful thing in this project is the Indigenous-led decision-making. For Naawi-Oodena, we are free to make decisions and to invite Indigenous architects to develop the overall concept and the details of the project. In that way, we can really experiment on different types of design within a whole area, conveying new types of storytelling through architecture. For us, as Indigenous architects and designers, it also gives us the freedom to avoid going through all the challenges and hindrances of cultural representation. Within this project, we are all Indigenous and therefore understand from the top what it really means to be Indigenous. The removal of these filters of translation can empower us as designers.

Nango – This makes me jealous to hear! In so many projects of Indigenous architecture, the element of representation gets so much attention. It blows my mind to think about an arena where these types of explorations could manifest themselves in 1:1 dimensions. What happens when we remove the element of representation in Indigenous architecture? Is it even possible? You could almost call it a “Level 2” type of Indigenous. It is inspiring to think about this and to keep following this as a development.

Thomas – Exactly—the architecture exists within in the realm of governance. It is not commercial; it is actually situated in a national and sovereign setting. The planning process therefore contains so many new forms of meaning. It’s not in a park, a historical site, or within the realm of tourism. It’s instead placed within a sovereign nation, within a sovereign community, within a sovereign street, and under a sovereign flag. It becomes something completely different.

My hope is that the architecture can be respected as an expression similar to our craft traditions, like the basket-weaving and beading processes that are respected and perceived as integrated parts of our culture. I wish that architecture could become appreciated and better understood. If that happened, I think architecture would also take on a role of cultural responsibility. The moral and custom role of architecture should be restored. In our culture, the architect is not only an architect; I think the architect always had another and more integrated type of role in the community. I once had a conversation with Douglas Cardinal about this, and he suggested that maybe a comparison could be the role of the Shaman.

Nango – Really? I think that sounds a bit...pompous? There is something about the pragmatic tasks that architects do that are humbling in so many ways. It’s really about everyday life in a way—I’m not sure if I feel comfortable taking on such a position as Cardinal suggested. I would rather compare it to maybe the caretaker. Or the janitor or gardener? These roles also come to mind. When I made my first project on Sámi architecture, I deliberately used the term “Sámi Huksendáidda,” which in the Sámi language means “the Sámi art of building.” I kind of deliberately chose to not use the word “architecture” but rather to relate to a more active form: “to build.”

Thomas – Yeah, Indigenous architects are working within the community and have a place within the community. I have been looking for a way to describe the Indigenous architect as well, but I haven’t found the right word for it yet. In so many ways, architecture changes together with the society around us. I think our role is to stay sensitive to this change—perhaps understanding these changes is also the role of architects. Understanding the environment, the context. Listening to the land that we are indigenous to.

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The Indigenous-led design and development of Naawi-Oodena establishes the unique possibilities of architecture initiatives that incorporate Indigenous methodologies to move beyond representation and instead enact cultural practices. The common caricaturing of traditional architectural forms, such as the tipi, to represent Indigenous customs gives way to a more complex process that allows for an understanding of Indigenous culture, knowledge, and governance that is active and changing and that represents the future of architecture. The following text is an edited reprint of the 2017 essay “Sharing Plans for Aboriginal Housing” by Australian architecture scholar Timothy O’Rourke.1 O’Rourke was invited to speak as part of Indigenous Architectures, a session of Plug In ICA’s Summer Institute led by Nango. The program combined a week of intensive lectures by guests speakers from Winnipeg and around the world with a week of on-site production for the development of Uncle Doug’s Fishing Shack. O’Rourke’s text, originally published in Architecture Australia, details some of the basic design problems with colonial-government public housing and looks at the potential for Aboriginal-led design to obtain better housing security.