Two of four Venice Biennale shortlisted teams include ASAU members

January 26, 2022

Five members of Carleton University’s architecture school, including the interim director, feature on two teams shortlisted by the Canada Council for the Arts for Canada’s official representation at the 2023 Venice Biennale of Architecture. 

The Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism is the official applicant for HiLo/YOW+, a collaborative which includes Associate Professor Ozayr Saloojee, Associate Professor Johan Voordouw, Assistant Professor Piper Bernbaum, and Assistant Professor Suzanne Harris-Brandts.Meanwhile, Interim Director Federica Goffi is the invited curator for the Chevalier Morales Collaborative. 

The Canada Council for the Arts shortlisted four teams.

HiLo/YOW+  

 

HiLo/YOW+ is a diverse multidisciplinary design collaborative that spans Turtle Island and beyond, with team members from Africa, the Netherlands, the United States, and Canada.  

 

Linking two architecture schools, HiLo is based in Vancouver at the University of British Columbia’s School of Architecture + Landscape Architecture and YOW+ in Ottawa at Carleton University’s Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism. 

 

In addition to Carleton’s faculty members, Saloojee, Voordouw, Bernbaum, and Harris-Brandts, the team includes two members of the UBC School of Architecture + Landscape Architecture: Associate Professor and Chair in Architecture Blair Satterfield and Lecturer Thena Jean-hee Tak.  

 

Their proposal, -Post-, speculates on a series of narratives in Canadian architecture, reflecting on past and future relationships and the material stories that underpin them. The Canadian Pavilion will be transformed through a set of installations into an experiential, global event space where guests will be invited to consider: “how can we ask better questions through the stories we tell?” 

 

-Post- measures, positions, supports, and takes stock by placing visitors in relation to space, history, time, and identity. The pavilion, itself a communication post, becomes an architectural prompt and provocation to investigate the multiplicity of Canada’s past, present, and future stories. 

Chevalier Morales Collaborative 

 

Chevalier Morales Collaborative is a research unit in search of new operating models, collaborative strategies, and listening tools in the field of architecture. 

 

For the Biennale, the unit integrates four academics from four different universities in three different provinces, who are specialized in the fields of Indigenous studies, architecture, sustainable design, critical practices, and architectural mediations. 

 

The Chevalier Morales Collaborative team: 

– Dr. Josie C. Auger, Associate Professor, Athabasca University 

– Stephan Chevalier, Architect, Principal, Chevalier Morales 

– Dr. Jean Pierre Chupin, Architect, Professor of Architecture, Faculté de l’aménagement, Université de Montréal 

– Dr. Carmela Cucuzzella, Professor, Design and Computation Arts, Faculty of Fine Arts, Concordia University 

– Dr. Federica Goffi, Architect (Italy), Interim Director, Professor of Architecture, Azrieli School of Architecture & Urbanism, Carleton University 

– Sergio Morales, Architect, Principal, Chevalier Morales 

 

The proposal, Pre-Occupied Architectures / Prerequisites, looks at how buildings meet their ground as a shared space with a deep history — one that is collective, social, economic, and geopolitical. How can we reformulate the spatial and cultural conditions of listening? Such questions are pressing in architecture schools and are addressed — albeit partially —in exemplary architecture projects throughout Canada. 

Venice Biennale in Architecture

 

Since 1980, the Venice Biennale of Architecture has been one of the world’s most important exhibitions of global architecture. The 18th International Architecture Exhibition, taking place in 2023, will feature 60 national pavilion exhibitions, a central exhibition with over 100 participants from around the world, as well as collateral events throughout the city.  

The selection committee is expected to announce the team that will represent Canada in March 2022.  

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