Decolonizing Design Equity Workshop by Prof. Wanda Dalla Costa + AEDE
Global Studio Lecture Series
Hosted by Athabasca University RAIC Centre for Architecture, Advocates for Equitable Design Education, Indigenous Design Collaborative
Title of the Event: Decolonizing Design by Wanda Dalla Costa
Date: Thursday, January 28, 2021
Time: 9:00am – 10:30am (MDT) / 11:00am – 12:30 pm (EDT)
Abstract
We invite you to join us for an online workshop led by Wanda Dalla Costa focusing on decolonizing
design education from an Indigenous perspective. The workshop will dive into four Indigenous design research paradigms: Futurity, Placekeeping, Pluriverse, and Design as Ceremony. Participants will come away from this workshop with a deeper awareness of Indigenous design practices, which can bring insight into their own practice and research.
Futurity
challenges assumptions consigning Native American peoples and lifeways to the past and uses creative thinking as a pathway toward Indigenous revival and self determination. Architecture is one portal of reimagining futurity of and for Indigenous people.
Placekeeping
prioritizes the historical and cultural setting, negotiates an expanded role of citizen experts and
knowledge brokers, utilizes Indigenous methodologies as a means of accessing local narrative, and is led by local worldviews and lived experience.
The Pluriverse
acknowledges and validates humanity’s interconnectedness as species through concepts such as:
ancestrality, autonomy, and futurality. The Pluriverse acts as a stark contrast to the suppression of world views and realities that differ from the Euro-centric status quo.
Design as ceremony. Indigenous architecture views the design process as a sacred process of preserving and disseminating Indigenous worldviews. Comprehension of Indigenous worldviews can be exemplified through four inseparable modes of understanding: ontology, epistemology, axiology, and methodology: ontology and epistemology are based on a process of relationships that form a mutual reality; the axiology and methodology are based upon maintaining accountability to these relationships.
About:
Wanda Dalla Costa, AIA, LEED A.P. is a member of the Saddle Lake Cree Nation. She is a practicing
architect, a professor and a YBCA 100 2019 honoree. At Arizona State University, she is the director and founder of the Indigenous Design Collaborative, a community-driven design and construction program, which brings together tribal community members, industry and a multidisciplinary team of ASU students and faculty to co-design and co-develop solutions for tribal communities. Dalla Costa holds a Master of Design Research in City Design from SCI-Arc, and a Master of Architecture from the University of Calgary.