Usually, when a Canadian exhibition is selected for the prestigious Venice Architecture Biennale, the story ends there — a triumphant appearance at the world’s premier stage for architecture and design, seen only by those privileged enough to travel to Venice. But Unceded: Voices of the Land, a celebration of Indigenous architecture conceived by renowned architect Douglas Cardinal and created by a team of eighteen Indigenous architects, has taken a rare second life. Seven years after its debut, it’s now on display in an unlikely venue: Edmonton’s City Centre Mall, in a space that until recently housed the Hudson’s Bay Company.
The exhibition is extraordinary, showcasing brilliance in both its curation and architectural design. The installation, composed of a series of video and audio projections, features no corners or sharp edges. Instead, two curved canvas walls flow through the space like the banks of a river, guiding viewers through the exhibition like a leaf drifting downstream.
The effect is intentional. Throughout his career, Cardinal has championed organic architecture, an approach that prioritizes harmony between human structures and their environments. The curvilinear shape of the exhibition space reflects forms that recur in Cardinal’s work and in nature.
The design of the space also emphasizes an underlying ethos of the project: interconnection. Rather than feeling like a series of rooms or disparate screens, the exhibition presents a unified piece — a quality that reminds viewers not only of our connection to the land but also to the past, the future, and to each other.
In this way, Unceded highlights many values of Indigenous architecture, offering an expansive vision of architectural practice — not simply the crafting of structures but the nurturing of all that grows on Turtle Island.
Aptly, when many of the architects in the exhibition discuss their work — through pre-recorded messages on three of the project’s screens — they speak not just about buildings but also about listening, community, matriarchy and ancestry.
The longest section of the project, titled “An Awakening of Indigenous Knowledge,” focuses on Indigenous education and the history of treaties and residential schools. This installation includes interviews with residential school survivors, such as Margaret Reynolds, who recounts the story of a fire at the residential school in Lac La Plage, Saskatchewan, which claimed the lives of young boys trapped in a building Reynolds describes as a prison.
However, Cardinal did not want the exhibition to centre on trauma or victimhood; he aimed for it to celebrate the beauty, resilience and strength of Indigenous peoples and ways of life. This intention is reflected in the exhibition’s construction, which weaves the history of residential schools and the Sixties Scoop into a broader narrative filled with hope, forward-thinking and care.
As I left the exhibition, that message resonated deeply. Unceded is housed on the main floor of the City Centre Mall, tucked away in the commercial space recently ceded by the Hudson’s Bay Company. In one sense, there is something poetic about the exhibition’s location, and in a downtown core that has come to feel abandoned, it seems to speak directly to its environment. Yet, I fear the exhibition’s location has led to it being tragically overlooked. I asked the exhibition staff about attendance since the show opened on March 15. They informed me that on days without school groups, they can expect between zero and seven guests. I visited the exhibition twice, each time for over an hour, and on both visits, I was alone in the space.
Unceded is a world-class exhibition that offers viewers a way to think about building for the future while honouring the past. It conveys a message that is hopeful, thoughtful, and community-minded. However, to receive that message and witness it, we must show up.
Unceded: Voices of the Land is on display at City Centre Mall until June 21. Tickets for adults are $28.48, with discounted prices for youth and children.
