-POST-

Abstract

This paper and presentation reflected on a shortlisted proposal for Canada’s Pavilion to the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale. Authored by the collaborative research/design group HiLo/YOW+ and a global partnership of transdiciplinary voices, this project explores issues of decarbonisation and decolonisation through an architecture proposal in the Giardini. Embracing the plural definitions of the word post (as structure, colonial sign, markers, registers, institutions, pedagogies, media and so on), the project is a dialogue between two elements: the nurse log and commissioned post. The Nurse-Log is both physical structure - constructed with reclaimed materials and engineered with zippered-wood - as well as a conceptual/epistemological device. It serves as decaying seedbed from which other voices, expressed in the form of commissioned, designed posts emerge and interact. These posts productively unsettle, and are story-telling and world making devices that centre those voices that do not receive official imprimatur in official narratives and archives.

Keywords: Architecture, decolonization, decarbonization, Biennale, Canada, material practice, story-telling