Two architecture professors on Venice Biennale team

Two professors at the University of Waterloo are members of a team that has been chosen to represent Canada at the next Venice Biennale showcase of architecture.

Adrian Blackwell and David Fortin, both professors at the Waterloo School of Architecture, belong to Architects Against Housing Alienation (AAHA), which will launch Not for Sale!, an architectural activist campaign, at the Canada Pavilion in Giardini, Italy.

Adrian Blackwell (left) and David Fortin are professors at the Waterloo School of Architecture.

The prestigious Venice Biennale of Architecture, one of the most important cultural institutions in the world, is scheduled to run from May 20 to Nov. 26.

Selected by the Canada Council for the Arts, which contributes $500,000 towards exhibition production, the Canadian contribution will bring together activists, advocates and architects to present visions for equitable and affordable housing.

“It is crucial that we respond to Canada’s deep housing crisis,” AAHA said in a media release. “Together with Indigenous leaders, activists, advocates, and architects, we will create a campaign for accessible and affordable housing for all.”

Blackwell is described as an artist, designer, theorist and educator whose work explores the relationship between physical spaces and political economic forces.

Fortin is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario and a member of the Royal Architectural Institute of Canada (RAIC) Indigenous Task Force that seeks ‘ways to foster and promote Indigenous design in Canada.’