Migrating Landscapes

The Migrating Landscapes Organizer (MLO) is pleased to announce an open ideas competition for young Canadian architects and designers. This competition will be the main process for creating Canada’s official entry to the 2012 Venice Biennale in Architecture, entitled MIGRATING LANDSCAPES.

Themed around migration and cultural identity, MIGRATING LANDSCAPES examines how we as Canadians express our diverse cultural memories and the settling/unsettling dynamic of migration in contemporary settlements and/or dwellings. The competition invites young Canadian architects and designers to reflect on their migration experiences and cultural memories, and to design dwellings onto a 'new landscape', an exhibition infrastructure designed by MLO.

The project was inspired by the experiences of three young first generation Canadians who live in Winnipeg: Johanna Hurme (5468796 Architecture Inc., originally from Finland), Sasa Radulovic (5468796 Architecture Inc., originally from former Yugoslavia) and Jae-Sung Chon (University of Manitoba Faculty of Architecture, originally from South Korea).
Ms. Hurme, Mr. Radulovic and Mr. Chon have joined together as a curatorial team known as the Migrating Landscapes Organizer (MLO). MLO will act as organizers and curators of the project. The intention of this competition is to bring the Venice Biennale to Canada, by promoting and exposing the up-and-coming generation of Canadian architects and designers to the Canadian public before showcasing them in Venice. The goal is to build a young, architectural “Team Canada” to represent Canada in Venice.

The competition will result in regional events and exhibitions at public venues from coast to coast, culminating in a National competition and exhibition at the Winnipeg Art Gallery in the spring of 2012, a precursor to the Biennale in Venice. This year-long tour across Canada will be a great opportunity to identify young and diverse next generation architects and designers across the country, to generate excitement about their work and architecture culture in general, and to build relationships between various communities (cultural, educational, institutional, corporate, industrial, etc) across Canada.

The year-long competition process will consist of three consecutive stages: pre-selection, regional and national. Winners of each stage will move on to the subsequent stage.

Schedule:

Registration and Q&A : August 1 - September 15, 2011 (midnight)
Submission deadline: October 1, 2011 (midnight)
Regional Exhibitions [across Canada]: November, 2011 - February, 2012
National Exhibition [Winnipeg]: Spring 2012
Venice Exhibition: August - November, 2012

Further Competition Information and Registration Form are available at : http://www.migratinglandscapes.ca