Architect and academic David Fortin explores how the limitations of design can be productively reframed to open up possibilities – especially as they pertain to current housing challenges impacting both Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians. His talk will feature the Architects Against Housing Alienation project Not For Sale, currently on view in the Canada Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale.

A professor at the University of Waterloo School of Architecture and the first Indigenous person to direct a school of architecture in Canada, Fortin investigates the instrumentality of the design process in influencing how we see our futures, with a particular focus on Indigenous voices and agency. A member of the Métis Nation of Ontario and of the RAIC Indigenous Task Force that seeks ways to foster and promote Indigenous design in Canada, he also leads a small design firm working closely with communities to realize their visions. In addition to this year’s Venice Biennale project, he was co-curator, with Gerald McMaster, of UNCEDED: Voices of the Land, Canada’s entry to the Venice Biennale in 2018.