Are there any further questions: Weypiskosiweywin III’s identity lies in the eye of the beholder

November 19, 2015

Weypiskosiweywin III. Photo by Jake Chakasim.

By Laura E. Young

SUDBURY — Often with architecture, people are left to wonder exactly what they are viewing.

And that’s perfectly fine with Jake Chakasim, a professor at Laurentian University’s School of Architecture and the lead designer on Weypiskosiweywin III, the latest and largest artefact to take root in Founders’ Square in the heart of the university campus.

Weypiskosiweywin III was built as part of Indigenous Education week at Laurentian, October 26-30.

On an overcast morning of October 26, 53 third-year architecture students spent nearly three hours constructing the massive artefact. The ribbed, basket-like structure was designed around the theme of transforming the landscape.

It also gave the school, which is located in downtown Sudbury, an opportunity to create an on-campus presence and to challenge preconceived notions of what indigenous architecture is and how it occurs on university campuses across Canada

So, is it a basket? Is it a lacrosse stick? Does it represent the ribs of the canoe?

“It’s enough to have (students) stop for a moment and contemplate, and question what it is? Why is it here? What does it represent? Who does it represent,” says Chakasim, who teaches design studio with a focus on global indigenous precedents.

“I’m really trying to address the notion of aboriginal education in universities, how it’s being facilitated and how it’s being represented. Even the danger of how it’s being self-represented without consultation, in many ways.”

Armed with their hands and some power tools, his students took untreated lumber, bending and blending some 12, 24, 36-feet long, and even a 40-foot sample.

Amid discussion of the October weather, Chakasim reminded them to embrace the Northern climate: they are, after all, a northern school of architecture. “They were game. It was good thing Starbucks came around,” he laughs, speaking of one of the coffee shops nearby on campus.

The students enjoyed the communal aspect of the large project, he says. The in-design studio set-up usually has the students working in groups of 15.

“This project they really enjoyed because we were able to work with people that they don’t normally work alongside. It was quick and it was beautiful. We created something communally.”

Chakasim sites a gender perspective that has entered the conversation. “Some people see a womb, a notion of the emergence of something. I find that fascinating when they’re able to make that connection. We’re looking for a renewed typology in Northern Ontario.”

At the end of the day, Weypiskosiweywin III is “an abstract concept that is referencing a lot of traditional principles of design.”

Weypiskosiweywin III is, however, a Cree structure planted beside and overwhelming the Plains teepee in Founders’ Square, a blending of ideas in which Chakasim delights.

For Chakasim this speaks to displacement, such as northern students experience when they come south to cities like Sudbury, North Bay, and Thunder Bay, before dispersing over the rest of Ontario and Canada, and creating something new, he says.

“I think this is a situation where we see a lot of young First Nations people develop new identifies in terms of hip hop culture, expressing themselves in new medium.”

For Weypiskosiweywin III it was the same thing. “We may not be able to step back into the old ways and use small round dimensional saplings; we shop at Home Depot, like every other person.”

For Chakasim it’s about taking material and applying traditional principles to form something new.

“It really addresses the issues head-on, that we’re trying to have a larger cross-cultural dialogue that’s inclusive to everyone.”

Either way, there are no right or wrong answers about what Weypiskosiweywin actually is, he adds. The structure creates a third space, a middle ground for conversation, something the university is always trying to facilitate, he says.

“But how do you create the space for that?”

In the meantime, Weypiskosiweywin III will be ‘left’ to weather, accumulating the debris of the seasons: leaves and grass, snow and ice. In the spring, Chakasim says he will see where the conversation goes and whether the structure will remain or be brought down.

Also in the works is a booklet about Weypiskosiweywin III as part of three indigenous architecture projects that include structures of Nipissing First Nation, built in the summer of 2014 and an installation built for the 2015 Pan American Games near the Old Fort York Historic Site in Toronto.