A cozy glow, like soft blaze issuing from a hearth, infuses the entrance of “ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Vers chez soi / Towards Home” (2022). Visitors are welcomed by a replica of a northern porch, designed by Taqralik Partridge and Tiffany Shaw. Hunting, camping, and fishing gear are arranged along a makeshift divider designed with repurposed plywood and two-by-fours—everyday essentials for life and mobility on the land. The divider cleverly marks the transition between interior and exterior experiences of home and land.

Cocurated by Joar Nango, Partridge, Jocelyn Piirainen, and Rafico Ruiz, “ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Vers chez soi / Towards Home” engages the reterritorialization of home and everyday space in creative and inventive ways, reflecting on how Arctic Indigenous communities relate to land and create empowered, self-determined spaces of home and belonging. The central premise of the Inuit and Sámi curators’ statement is that “caring for and living on the land is a way of being.” These thematics are grounded in a compelling and forward-thinking compilation of installations, video, photography, archival materials, and a delightful ad hoc library.

Echoing from a remixed radio program produced by DJ Geronimo Inutiq, Uvatinni Uqaalajunga / J’appelle chez nous / I’m Calling Home (2022), are the beautiful sounds of kattajaq (Inuit throat-singing) in a mesmerizing rendition of ayaya by Adina Tarralik Duffy, an English-Inuktitut rap song by John Awa, and a local advisory weather report by Jarvis Usuituayuk. These pieces reverberate across the galleries from a nostalgic mini boom box set within a domestic tableau, a work collectively produced in collaboration with members from Inutiq’s home community, Usuituayuk, Tommy Kingwatsiak, Annie Hickey, and Patrick Michael. Centrally placed between companion chairs, the intimacy of the spatial arrangement encourages visitors to sit and listen. The installation reinforces the notion of borderless space through radio and community broadcasting, which connects Inuit living in the South to home and family up North.

In an adjacent gallery, visitors are greeted by the textile installation Offernat (Votive Night) (2022) by Sámi artist Carola Grahn, in collaboration with master craftsman Ingemar Israelsson. A hanging neon-green printed textile piece with strung brass rings resembling the northern lights, a winding river path, or the fringe of a Sámi woman’s gákti (skirt) guide the eyes toward a ceremonial plinth bearing a beautifully crafted duodji (Sámi handicraft) piece carved from birch burl and beset with flowers and leaves. In an interview with cocurator Ruiz, the artist noted how “putting this duodji— this craft—as an altar makes it special. To have it as a centrepiece is also a gesture of saying this is something very, very important.” Grahn invokes Sámi futures through an Arctic Indigenous design ethos that emphasizes ceremony and reciprocity with the landscape. This Arctic Indigenous cosmology is cleverly reimagined as a functional design principle, much like duodji itself, where the artists conceive of the exhibited craft as a welcoming object activated by museum staff and visitors who are encouraged to add or replace the offerings.

A research station resembling a pin-up studio within the exhibition, called “Futurecasting: Indigenous-led Architecture and Design in the Arctic,” features the imaginative design productions following a series of collective conversations, seminars, and workshops. Characteristic of many of the Canadian Centre for Architecture’s (CCA) exhibitions, this research-driven gallery showcases how Arctic Indigenous designers imagine their own sovereign architectural futures. With a focus on land-based practices and Indigenous knowledges in the design process, the resulting works are based on a series of seminars and workshops coorganized by Ella den Elzen, Gunvor Guttorm, and Nicole Luke, and undertaken by Inuit and Sámi participants: Robyn Adams, Jenni Hakovirta, Berit Kristine Andersen Guvsám, Laila Susanna Kuhmunen, Andrea McIntosh, Johanna Minde, Reanna Merasty, Naomi Ratte, and Magnus Antaris Tuolja. The participating curators, designers, and photographers live or travel between the North and South. Luke, for instance, repurposes an everyday object from the Arctic: a sealskin stretcher. For Arctic Buildings, Nunavut (2021) the stretcher frames a collage of photographs from the artist’s childhood, and a recent trip back to Nunavut, the artist’s homeland.

Cocurator Nango’s Sámi Architectural Library (2022) epitomizes one of the exhibition’s underlying messages: that Arctic Indigenous architecture continues to be forged in peripatetic, adaptable, resourceful, and inter-relational ways. Designed after the mobile library Girjegumpi (2018), Nango’s built library, designed with wood, repurposed construction materials, books, bark, fish skin, and video, is a generous public resource and social space offering the visitor an opportunity to sit with a collection of books related to Arctic Indigenous architectures, history, theory, and criticism. Sámi Architectural Library is designed by the architect to facilitate public reflection on Indigenous architectures that can displace Eurocentric approaches toward cultural, embodied, material, and socio-spatial architectural contexts.

Through a curatorial emphasis on “the knowledge and experiences of being at home on the land,” this substantive and self-aware exhibition extends consideration toward diverse publics through its curatorial emphasis on access and inclusivity. As reflected in the entrance’s northern porch, the exhibition is structurally and symbolically emblematic of a safe and welcoming presence for Indigenous communities. “ᐊᖏᕐᕋᒧᑦ / Ruovttu Guvlui / Vers chez soi / Towards Home” is a tremendous achievement—one that opens doors for future research and collaborative opportunities at the CCA. It is a homecoming for emerging Indigenous designers, scholars, curators, and creators.