The Canada Council for the Arts has announced that Architects Against Housing Alienation (AAHA)’s Not for Sale! will represent Canada at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia.
AAHA is a curatorial collective, formed for the Venice Biennale of Architecture, to instigate an architectural movement for socially, ecologically, and creatively empowering housing for all. AAHA includes University of Waterloo School of Architecture faculty members Adrian Blackwell and David Fortin, architect Luugigyoo Patrick Reid Stewart and University of British Columbia faculty members Matthew Soules, Sara Stevens, and Tijana Vujosevic. UBC's School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture is the lead organization for the project, partnering with the Waterloo's School of Architecture.
Conceived as a response to the country’s protracted housing crisis, Not for Sale! is an architectural activist campaign for non-alienated housing. In Canada’s real-estate driven economy, homes have become spatio-financial assets. AAHA rejects this conception of property and the financialized form of architecture that it entails. The Canada Pavilion will serve as Not for Sale!’s campaign headquarters, where an expansive collaboration with activists, advocates, and architects from across Canada will present their demands to address the housing crisis. The campaign seeks to energize Canadians to join the call for safe, equitable, and affordable housing.
AAHA states: “We are thrilled to have been selected to represent Canada at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition, a prestigious international platform that engages critical conversation about contemporary architecture. It is crucial that we respond to Canada’s deep housing crisis. Together with Indigenous leaders, activists, advocates, and architects, we will create a campaign for accessible and affordable housing for all.”
The 2023 Venice Biennale of Architecture will be held from May 20 to November 26, 2023.
Image credit: Architects Against Housing Alienation (AAHA), Poster in Toronto (poster by Chris Lee, rendering by William Hansen), 2022.