Originally published as a webcomic, cartoonist Kat Verhoeven’s book Meat and Bone beautifully weaves together the social and personal lives of three women, highlighting their struggles, and personal growth. Verhoeven’s praiseworthy use of colour and light transitions the reader from one familiar Toronto backdrop to another, carrying them through dreamlike scenes and personal fantasies, and captivates them at critical moments of clarity and urgency.

Meat and Bone is a queer drama that follows Anne, a young writer who struggles with an eating disorder, and her growth alongside her friends Gwen and Jane. The story begins with Jane, a fellow writer and close friend from university, moving in with Anne and Gwen after spending two years in Switzerland and breaking up with her partner. Gwen quickly moves on from her ex-boyfriend, and begins to explore polyamory. The three women, all having recently broken up with their lovers, decide that this is a chance for a fresh start.

Gwen is still on amicable terms with her ex, Lawrence, and communicates openly with him about her new relationships and endeavours. However, she soon realizes that communication is lacking between herself and one of her partners, and must address her own dishonesty. Unfortunately, her dishonesty comes with messy consequences – consequences that she does not deserve, but must handle with maturity to move forward. In her exploration of polyamorous relationships, Gwen learns about herself, her needs as well as others’, and the importance of open communication in a polyamorous relationship.

Verhoeven’s illustration and narration of Gwen’s character development is refreshing; representations of healthy polyamorous relationships are rare, and often overly sexualize and sensationalize these relationships. While Verhoeven doesn’t shy away from depicting sex or a messy storyline, she gives Gwen opportunities to explore her own boundaries, as well as recognize and respect the boundaries and needs of her partners.

As Jane adjusts to life back in Toronto, she searches for employment, writes, and cares for her friends, but rarely shares her own troubles. Jane is nurturing, warm, and compassionate, and works through her own problems independently. She begins to go to the gym, encouraging Anne to do so as well; however, Jane and Anne differ in what they hope to achieve by exercising. Jane initially signs up at the gym to become “revenge skinny,” in order to spite her infidelitous and fatphobic ex-boyfriend, but soon realizes her goal is to build strength, both physically and emotionally. She develops self-confidence and self-love that Anne admires yet fears. As Anne reminisces about once having lost weight, she moans to Jane, “You remember how it felt, don’t you? The compliments. The attention.” Jane responds calmly, “and I wasn’t any happier. I don’t want it. I want to be strong.”

Jane asserts, “I’m fat. I have always been fat. It wasn’t news.”

A recurring entity that Anne fantasizes about throughout the novel is one of Barbarella – a fictional character played by Jane Fonda from the nominal film, about an astronaut from the 41st century. Barbarella is Anne’s model of ideal beauty, a symbol of sexual liberation, and her obsession; in incorporating the Barbie-esque character into Anne’s imagination, Verhoeven touches on the ways in which the media upholds unhealthy and fatphobic beauty standards. In an interview with Them, she connects Anne’s idol to Jane Fonda, who spoke openly about her experiences with an eating disorder and, quite problematically, her struggles to maintain her image as a “sex icon” in the 60s.

Then Anne meets Marshall. “Wow. Is she real?” As she sees Marshall for the first time, smoking a cigarette on her balcony one floor below, her hair billowing around her, “Could I date a girl that thin?” Anne ponders.

Marshall is a trans woman and model/actress struggling with an eating disorder and meeting cisnormative standards of beauty. Throughout the novel, she is portrayed as something of a “bad influence” on Anne, and Jane scrutinizes their relationship almost immediately. Marshall encourages Anne to take up a stricter diet, exercise, enforce self-discipline, and provides her with weight-loss drugs, all the while making critical comments about Anne’s “will-power” when it comes to food. Anne is enraptured by her, and they develop a dangerous co-dependent relationship. One day, while on a run together, Marshall stops to catch her breath and makes a pointed comment: “I know what you’re thinking… you want to save me.”

Without a moment’s hesitation, Anne responds, “I want to be you.”

In many ways, Marshall, in Anne’s mind, is Barbarella. To Anne, Barbarella is seen as “perfect” in every way, embodying the Eurocentric ideal of beauty: blonde hair, skinny but curvy, strong, and able-bodied. In some ways, Marshall-as-Barbarella is reminiscent of the “manic pixie dream girl” trope. However, in Anne’s fantasies, Barbarella is immortal – she cannot speak, does not have feelings, and only exists for consumption. Marshall disrupts that ideal; as Verhoeven notes, Marshall is not a distant, fictional character or an object of fantasy that solely exists in Anne’s imagination but a human being with her own agency. She has moments of weakness, and though her true emotions are heavily guarded, in brief and tender moments between her an Anne we are offered a glimpse of her true nature.

Marshall is a complicated character, despite how quick the reader may be to antagonize her; she is defensive, distant, and deeply hurt, essentially human and flawed. Marshall’s relationship with Anne is unhealthy and rooted in trauma, no doubt, but their care and affinities for one another are deep. Their relationship, while platonic, sometimes hints at the potential of something romantic between them – Anne’s attraction to Marshall, however complicated her reasons, is undeniable, particularly in the brief moments they exchange affection. “Somehow she says the right things,” Anne thinks to herself after Marshall embraces her, “When she does this kind of thing, is she flirting? Is Marshall into girls?”

Anne’s uncertainty and angst likely resonates deeply with many queer women. “I’m so confused,” Anne confesses to her sibling, “she’ll hold my hand or hug me too tight. Then says stuff like – designed to be read as platonic. Then she’ll turn around and call me babe!”

Verhoeven’s captivating and gorgeous storytelling, as well as her unwavering representation of flawed, complex, and difficult characters, unabashedly address eating disorders, polyamory, and queer love in a powerfully relatable and accessible way. Ultimately, Meat and Bone shines light on the complexity of human emotions and on the sorrow and joy of difficult relationships. As we follow the trials and tribulations of Anne, Marshall, Jane, and Gwen, among many of Verhoeven’s other unique characters, we watch them struggle with self-image, confidence, and interpersonal strife, and we watch them grow and mature. Verhoeven is unafraid of exploring complicated and tumultuous friendships, and of depicting relationships that are messy and uncertain – trajectories very much like many of our relationships in real life.

Kat Verhoeven is an illustrator and cartoonist based in Toronto. For more of her work, visit her website http://verwho.com/about.php or follow her on Twitter and Instagram @verwho

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“Thank you everyone for being with me here today, killjoys and complainers, misfits and troublemakers,” Ahmed began. “You might have a fight on your hands. […] You might have to fight to find a safe path through life, a way of progressing, of getting through, without having to give up yourself, or your desires.”

Ahmed’s “Complaint as Queer Method” discusses the event of making a complaint, specifically in terms of sexual harassment, in the institutional sphere of a university. She argues that the institutional mechanics of complaint – formal complaint policy, and the subsequent resolution, or lack thereof – are used to give the problem a new form; procedures come into existence without coming to use. The shape of complaints, therefore, become circular where they should be linear. The complaint is lodged, nothing is done, and it has to be reasserted again and again. This exhaustion is an institutional method for discouraging complaints. Ahmed describes this temporality as “queer,” reflecting on the cyclical nature of the queer community in repeatedly having to come out to the world, forever stuck in a correctional cycle.

Ahmed asserts that institutions hide complaints because complaints are stored in a metaphorical filing cabinet and become a record not just of what happened to a person, but also of what happened to an institution. Unfortunately, institutions favour their reputation above all else.

Using over 40 anecdotes from multiple different universities, Ahmed makes her point clear. The institutional decision to push complaints aside means that complaint requires a new understanding, beyond institutional policy and procedure. She considers a quote by Audre Lorde: “The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” The queer methodology that Ahmed applies to complaints reimagines a new mode of resistance to the complainers, one that brings some agency back to the complainer, and takes it away from the oppressive, hidden structure of universities. With each complaint, you leave a piece of yourself behind, like writing on the wall or a leaky pipe – these records are something that universities want to contain. Eventually, though, the pieces left behind add up, and are used to create a new atmosphere, a new shelter. Complaint finally transforms from a reactive resistance, to a productive force that (eventually) cannot be ignored.

Throughout her lecture, Ahmed comes back to a metaphor of a post box occupied by birds nesting, which she uses to visualize what a complaint can feel like; the post box, though it was not created for the birds that nest within, becomes a safe shelter. Yet the nest can also be disturbed by the letters within. “We know so much from trying to transform the worlds that don’t accommodate us. But that fight can also just be so damn hard. When we have to fight for an existence, you can end up feeling that fighting is your existence. And so, we need each other. We need to become each other’s resources.”

She also uses the post box to describe “the queer map of the organization:” “Queer maps, as we know, are useful; because they tell us where to go to find queer places […] places that might provide temporary shelters. Those gay bars can be our nests. Where we want to be.”

“Complaint is writing on the wall, ‘we are here, we did not disappear.’”

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On September 5, over 50 activists gathered at the Lemay architecture firm offices to protest the construction of the new Laval migrant prison. In 2017, Lemay obtained a five million dollar federal contract to design the plans for the facility and activists have been protesting it since. The project was announced in August 2016 by the Liberal government; Public Security Minister Ralph Goodale explained that $138 million dollars would be invested to build two new facilities, one in British Columbia and one in Quebec. While the Trudeau government was elected for supposedly having a welcoming immigration policy, it has clearly not lived up to its campaign promises. Currently, there are three migrant “detention centres” in Canada: one in Laval, one in Toronto, and one in Vancouver, administered by the Canada Border Service Agency. Migrants are also imprisoned in regular and maximum-security prisons across the country. From April 2014 to March 2015, 6,768 immigrants were detained, 2,366 of whom were released and 3,325 deported from Canada.

The announcement was justified by a need to create a “fairer and more humane immigration detention system.” The inhumane conditions that exist within those migrant prisons were not addressed, neither were the multiple deaths and illegal solitary confinement that have repeatedly occurred in the existing prisons. The Laval project costs an astronomical $56 million, and will be able to imprison 133 migrants, with a maximum capacity of 158 when extra overflow cots are added. This is an extension of the current holding facility that exists in Laval, which can hold 144 migrants. The prison is planned to open in 2021 and is located at 600 Montée Saint-François, a kilometer away from the current provincial detention facility. The rhetoric of the Liberal government has been to present this prison as a positive improvement compared to the current one, which was built in the 1950s, rather than as the massive investment in the further policing and criminalizing of migrants and racialized people in Canada.

Detaining immigrants in prison for indefinite periods of time is an abhorrent practice that takes place all too often in Canada.

In the plans designed by Lemay, which were revealed in a report released by the Canadian Border Service Agency (CBSA) in 2017, the facility is described as having a “warm and homey feeling.” The report describes a facility which follows sustainability standards, has a LEED certification and is environmentally friendly; it further describes “children playing areas” which will “only be surrounded by a one-metre fence similar to a daycare facility.” This new migrant prison, which subjects migrants and asylum seekers to inhumane conditions, will be detaining children and separating families, all while presenting it in a palatable manner. The emphasis on sustainability is essentially greenwashing; a prison remains a prison, no matter how environmentally friendly it is. It is part of a larger movement of rebranding of migrant prisons as “reformed” and aesthetically attractive, in order to conceal their harmful nature.

The new “detention centres,” regardless of how the government attempts to masquerade them as humane, are simply a continuation of racial profiling in law enforcement, xenophobia, and the practice of detaining undocumented immigrants indefinitely; that is, a prison. The new facility would be located next to three existing prison complexes, where immigrants are already being detained without trial. In 2018, over 1,500 immigrants were detained in maximum-security provincial prisons, typically on the grounds that they were “unlikely to appear for their immigration hearing.” Detaining immigrants in prison for indefinite periods of time is an abhorrent practice that takes place all too often in Canada; many detainees are held for a few weeks, but sometimes their cases can drag on for several months or years. For example, Kashif Ali, a West African man, spent seven years in prison, sometimes in solitary confinement, without a release date, because the government could not deport him. Amy Darwish, an organizer with Solidarity Across Borders, condemns the project: “For the people on the inside, it doesn’t matter if there are leaves on the window, if you’re going to be separated from the people that you care about,” she says. “It doesn’t matter if the building is more energy efficient if you’re going to be deported back to a situation of danger. At the end of the day, this is a facility that’s aimed to facilitate deporting people.”

The emphasis on sustainability is essentially greenwashing; a prison remains a prison, no matter how environmentally friendly it is. It is part of a larger movement of rebranding of migrant prisons as “reformed” and aesthetically attractive, in order to conceal their harmful nature.

Sylvie Freeman, a prison abolitionist in Montreal, argues that the design of the new facility reflects an attempt at prison reform, which only strengthens the prison-industrial complex. “Often reformers are potentially well-intentioned, but every time reforms actually go through, they get co-opted. It just seems like prison reform always leads to an extension of the prison-industrial complex.” Carmelo Monge, an activist who was formerly detained in the Surveillance Centre for Immigration (CSI), argues, “the government claims that building ‘better’ prisons for ‘suspect’ immigrants is the answer, but the real problem is that we are treated like criminals; firstly by the very fact of being arrested. This is really what affects us. Why are they stopping us? Why are we suspicious in the eyes of the state? It is almost always our skin colour, our apparent poverty, and our accent that betray us. It is almost always on the basis of our image that we are stopped in the street. Being undocumented is not a pleasure. It’s hard. You need support, not to be arrested or imprisoned. Although the cage is golden, it remains a prison.”

Since the announcement, multiple protests and direct actions have been organized by activists, targeting mainly the complicit private contractors who have rendered the project possible. In May 2018, crickets were released in the Lemay offices to protest its designing of the plan. While the company claims that to be “socially responsible,” with “human interests” at heart in every project, their complicity in the inhumane detention of migrants and asylum seekers suggests otherwise. In March 2019, the windows of the sales office of a condo tower designed by Lemay in Montreal were smashed, and another condo development in the city was “redecorated” with spray paint by activists.

“The government claims that building ‘better’ prisons for ‘suspect’ immigrants is the answer, but the real problem is that we are treated like criminals.” — Carmelo Monge

In February 2019, the excavation company Loiselle’s offices in Salaberry-de-Valleyfield were covered in white paint and tagged with “No to the Migrant Prison.” The company was given the contract for decontaminating the future’s facility site before the construction started. On February 17, the first rally was organized by the organization Ni Frontières, Ni Prisons (No Borders, No Prisons); over 100 people marched from Saint-Henri metro to the Lemay offices. Three days later, another protest was organized, this time at the current CSI in Laval.

On May 1, International Labour Day, the annual anti-capitalist demonstration in Montreal chose to focus on the new migrant prison. The Convergence des Luttes Anti-Capitalistes in Montreal, who were part of the march, said on their website that they were targeting the prison and Lemay to oppose “capitalist and racist forces [who] build the walls of a Canada and USA fortress, making work and life conditions more and more dangerous and precarious for migrants.” According to The Link, over 200 protesters threw rocks and launched projectiles at Lemay’s Le Phoenix head office. Adeel Hayat from Solidarity Across Borders explained at the protest that “after crossing that fucking border about 60km South of here, people seeking asylum after months or years of homelessness are put in Canadian prisons, conveniently renamed ‘detention centres,’ to give them a more humane appearance.”

In June 2019, two acts of protest were carried out by activists, targeting cars belonging to Englobe enterprise and Lemay. Englobe is one of Canada’s largest firms, specializing in environmental engineering. It carried out the sanitation assessment for the future site of the prison; in response, one of the company’s cars was smashed, its tires slashed and tagged with the “No Migrant Prison” slogan. Activists on the Montreal Counter-Information website claimed responsibility for the act as an “easy and effective way of protesting” the company’s complicity in the project. On June 11, Lemay’s Vice-President André Cardinal’s BMW was torched in the city west end.

While [Lemay]  claims that to be “socially responsible,” with “human interests” at heart in every project, their complicity in the inhumane detention of migrants and asylum seekers suggests otherwise.

The contractor, who was given the $50 million federal contract for the construction of the prison by CBSA, was revealed in July 2019, sparking further protests over the summer. The company, Tisseur Inc., a construction company based in Val David, attempts to present itself as a socially responsible company, highlighting environmentally conscious projects on their website, while being complicit in the violent displacement and imprisonment of migrants in Canada. A family-friendly, information-picket protest was organized at their offices in August, where Amy Darwish from Solidarity Across Borders stated that “by agreeing to work on this project, Tisseur is profiting from the imprisonment of migrants and refugees” and that the goal of protest was to “talk to their workers about why there is widespread opposition to this project and why it is also an anti-worker project.”

These different acts of civil disobedience have all had a similar goal of both raising awareness around the new prison and actively opposing it. Activists have taken what they see as necessary steps to oppose a violent, inhumane facility, regardless of consequences. Direct action, especially now that the construction has effectively started despite widespread opposition, should be supported. These groups, which are often painted as “anarchists” or “extremists” by the mainstream media, have taken a strong antiprison stance, and we recognize the necessity of active opposition to such state violence.

The new migrant prison will replace the existing CSI in Laval. The government has attempted to justify the project by claiming that the new “detention centre” will have better ventilation, a playground for detained children, a TV room, better beds, and the separation of immigrants from prisoners. The government also claims that this will avoid criminalizing detained immigrants and respect their rights. However, this does not refute the fact that, regardless of living conditions, the very practice of targeting, arresting, and detaining immigrants is racist, dehumanizing, and detrimental to the well-being of migrants and their families. Immigration officers in plain clothes have allegedly been randomly conducting ID checks on the street in Toronto, though the CBSA has denied conducting street checks. Given the police and immigration services’ record of racial profiling, racialized immigrants are more likely to be targeted and arrested.

These groups, which are often painted as “anarchists” or “extremists” by the mainstream media, have taken a strong antiprison stance, and we recognize the necessity of active opposition to such state violence.

Moreover, the administration of these prisons by the CBSA is inherently harmful to migrants. The CBSA, while claiming not to be a prison force, adopted a new uniform for officers working with detained immigrants that includes highly defensive and militarized gear, such as bulletproof vests, batons, pepper spray, and handcuffs, which further contributes to the dehumanization and treatment of detainees as criminals despite not having committed a crime. The CBSA is also a body that is subject to little to no independent oversight. CBC News also reported in February that around 1,200 allegations of CBSA staff misconduct were made between January 2016 and the middle of 2018, including alleged offences of sexual assault, criminal association, and harassment.

Moreover, detained migrants are not told where their family members are being held or how to contact them, and children separated from their loved ones can experience psychological distress, sometimes on top of existing trauma. Some formerly detained immigrants, especially children and women who were separated from their families, experience anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and post-traumatic stress disorder as a consequence of their detainment. “Even short periods of detention are highly traumatic and detrimental to migrants’ health,” says Marlihan Lopez, Vice President of the Quebec’s Women Federation. “We denounce the government’s investment in infrastructure that upholds and reproduces violence against migrants.”

Each of these unnecessary deaths at the hands of the Canadian government have been handled with secrecy, leaving families without any information about what happened.

While most Canadians have called on the government to take a strong stance against the detainment of children in the United States at the hands of ICE following massive coverage of the horrifying practice, few are aware that Canada also detains children in so-called immigration centres. In 2018, over 160 children were detained in one of the three migrant prisons. While the government has stated that they will stop the practice of detaining children, the incorporation of a playground in the new migrant prison in Laval suggests otherwise. In November 2017, the government issued a “National Directive for the Detention or Housing of Minors,” which stated that it will reduce and eventually stop the practice of detaining children. However, the Candian Council for Refugees states that it is not enough, and calls for the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act to be amended to “end the detention of children, reserve children’s right to family unity by not detaining accompanying parents.” Further, the use of child removal, especially in racialized communities, has historically been a violent colonial tool of Canadian settler nation-building. The Union of BC Chiefs released an open letter to Trump and Trudeau condemning the separation of immigrant children from their parents. They called the action a violation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People, and stated that the detainment of children and separation of families is reminiscent of the policies of Indian residential schools in Canada and the US.

Furthermore, beyond the inhumane conditions and abuse happening within these prisons, at least 16 people have died at the hands of the CBSA since 2000. These deaths include the death of a 50-year-old woman at a maximum security prison in 2017; the death of Bolante Idowu Alo, who died in 2018 after an “altercation” with CBSA guards escorting him on a plane to be deported to Nigeria; the death of 39-year-old Francisco Javier Romero Astorga while in custody of the CBSA, whose family was only informed weeks later; the death of a 24-year-old man died in CBSA custody in Alberta; the deaths of Jan Szamko, 31, from Czech Republic; the death of Melkioro Gahungu, 64, from Burundi; the death of Abdurahman Hassan, 39, from Somalia; the death of Lucia Vega Jimenez, 42, from Mexico; and more whose names have not been released to the public. Each of these unnecessary deaths at the hands of the Canadian government have been handled with secrecy, leaving families without any information about what happened. Each of these must be condemned as state violence enacted against migrants, in migrant prisons that the government are now trying to rebrand as environmentally friendly, daycare-like centres.

The Union of BC Chiefs released an open letter to Trump and Trudeau condemning the separation of immigrant children from their parents […] and stated that the detainment of children and separation of families is reminiscent of the policies of Indian residential schools in Canada and the US.

The migrant “detention centre” in Laval is yet another prison making up the prison-industrial complex in Canada. First, Canada supports sanctions and egregious policies that destabilize countries and displace populations, only to detain those who are forced to migrate to Canada. These actions are predicated on racist and xenophobic ideologies that permeate every level of government in Canada. It is important to recognize that Canada’s immigration policies and practices are not removed from global systems of capitalism, colonialism, and imperialism. The outsourcing of labour, as well as Canadian mining projects in Latin America, exacerbate social inequality and political instability in the Global South. Moreover, Canada is complicit in US-led sanctions and imperialist interventions in Latin America and the Middle East, such as those in Cuba and Venezuela. Canada’s imperialist projects and colonial resource extraction abroad create unstable conditions in the Global South that displace people, who then migrate to Europe, the U.S., and Canada to seek asylum. Immigrants and their children are then criminalized by the state for not having the “proper” documentation and are faced with the threat of being deported.

Canada supports sanctions and egregious policies that destabilize countries and displace populations, only to detain those who are forced to migrate to Canada.

It is essential that we work towards abolishing all prisons, which includes refusing to allow new ones to be built. We must mobilize to stop the construction of the Laval migrant prison, as it will allow for the continued criminalization of racialized people. Many organizations have already begun mobilizing to try and halt construction, including the organization Solidarity Across Borders, which has been organizing weekly protests. They are also calling for a Day of Action on October 3, against Canada’s detention of migrants. We urge you to join these protests, while also keeping in mind the companies that are complicit in the construction of this prison. It is imperative that we put pressure on these companies through boycotts and public awareness, in order to help stop the migrant prison from being built.

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On the night of September 17, I entered a packed lecture hall in Macdonald Harrington, eager to see the architect whose work had initially drawn me towards architecture at a young age. As I entered the hall, the lights already dimmed and every seat filled, I joined those who were crouching on the steps of the aisles. That night, Douglas Cardinal challenged and upended the axioms and conventions on which I had built up my knowledge of architecture. 

Renowned Blackfoot architect and activist Douglas Cardinal was born in Calgary in 1934 and studied architecture at the University of British Columbia and the University of Texas at Austin. Cardinal has been awarded over 20 honourary doctorates and the title of Officer of the Order of Canada. One of the most notable signatures of his work is organic, curvilinear forms and a resistance to conventional, rectilinear shapes commonly found in architecture. Cardinal approaches architecture through an Indigenous worldview which, he explains, is based on cooperation, responsibility to one’s community, respect of land and life, and respect towards one’s ancestors as well as future generations. Thus, Cardinal bases his work on the philosophy of organic architecture, which is centred on the relationships between human beings, architecture, and the environment, and approaches architecture as a greater living organism. 

Cardinal began by picking up a black feather, explaining, “Elders told me to take it with me and remind me that I have to speak from my heart.” He began telling us about his childhood and family. His father, who was Anishinaabe, left his reserve and lived off the land. He was a hunter and trapper who sustained himself and his family off the land entirely, and raised Cardinal with the same skills and respect for the land and for life. “He realized that these animals gave up their lives so we could flourish, so we respected them.” 

His mother was a nurse who worked at a mental hospital. Cardinal describes her with fondness, “she was a very strong woman and she was from German immigrants who settled in Alberta […] At that time women had no voice. They didn’t have the vote, and they were just property of men. But she would never stoop to that. She was very self-sufficient. She got an education, and she was her own person. The doctors wanted to marry her, but she would never be in a patriarchal system, like the healthcare system was at that time.

“When she met my father […] and of course he’s Anishinaabe, and the Anishinaabe people honoured women. And women were very important in  Anishinaabe culture because they were primarily matrilineal and matriarchal. Women made all the decisions in the home, and made all the decisions for the community, and made all the decisions in the nation. And men […] honoured the decisions of the women and implemented them. That was very important for my mother, because she realized [that] if she stayed in the settler culture, she would be in a patriarchal system that […] she could not even think of tolerating. So she would rather live with my father. She quit her job, a very important job, and she moved to a little log cabin and raised eight children, and I’m the oldest.”

Cardinal then went on to talk about the impacts of settler colonialism and Catholic education on his childhood. “The problem came when I was around six or seven. My mother was Catholic. And the priest came in and said, ‘You can’t be married to this s*vage […] The only way you’ll have salvation is if you bring your children up Catholic.’ The priest convinced my mother to send me to a convent, and my two brothers, so we would be raised good Catholics. I spent half my time praying for my father, who was ‘such a s*vage,’ but to me, he was a very caring and loving human being. The people there at the convent […] were very abusive and talked about love but never followed through with it. […] I thought that truly my father was an amazing human being, and he taught me about loving and caring for all life. Because he lived it. He didn’t just talk about it. And I could understand why my mother loved him.

“So I wasn’t brought up on the reserve. But my mother wanted to make sure I was trained in the arts because she wanted me to be an architect. And I always listened to my mother.

“She trained me in the arts. That was the foundation for my background as an architect.

“But I could not remain a ‘good Catholic,’ or a good product of the colonies, because everything in my being rebelled against the programming I went through. The programming I went through was so challenging to me, mentally and physically, that I had tremendous anxiety attacks […] that would totally lay me flat. I could not tolerate that kind of thinking, that kind of mentality of the church and the state, because it was, for me… every cell in my body rebelled. So I had a very difficult time to survive.

“So at 15, I could not even take one more bit of society. I’d end up very sick with anxiety, and I’d run out to the trees and bush and totally get away from the settler society in order for me to even breathe. My whole nature, my whole way of being, rebelled against that society, and power, and control, and its [disrespect] for life […] and everything about it is disconnected from life and from nature, and our own nature.

“I found no value in the society that is based on a worldview that’s totally insane, as far as I can see, because our whole system rebelled against it. I dealt with it in a different way. I saw at that time that we come from two different worldviews.”

Two Different Worldviews

Cardinal distinguishes his worldview from that of settler-colonial society; the Indigenous worldview of his community, he explains, is based on individual responsibility, respect, and self-worth. In this worldview, power, as well as knowledge, resides within the individual. Indigenous society, according to Cardinal, is an extended family and is matriarchal. This society encourages cooperation as opposed to competition, and lives in harmony with nature and our own nature. 

Settler-colonial society, on the other hand, is founded on power, hierarchy, and control, and enforces conformity to the dominant structures and institutions by fear and man-made laws. Within this settler-colonial structure, there is a constructed binary of good and evil, which allows individuals to deny responsibility for their actions due to an external, powerful evil. Knowledge is perceived as something one must attain in order to earn credibility, and contributions must be legitimized by those seen as more knowledgeable than you.

Cardinal rejects the settler-colonial worldview, its patriarchal structure, and its disregard for life. He emphasizes the importance of life, temporality, and responsibility to others, both past, present, and future: “In the hierarchical world view […] man is naturally territorial, develops weapons of mass destruction that continue to accelerate, and the spin-off of these technologies [are] primarily designed for warfare.”

Countering Settler Architecture

“So how would one plan if we have a different way of thinking?”

Cardinal draws from one of his projects, which was to create a land use plan for the Kamloops Indian Band, to demonstrate how he approached planning and design from an Indigenous perspective. “I was asked by the elders to plan some traditional territories, and they guided me through these principles. First of all, start with all the species at risk and lay out all of them, and their land, how its used… and cultural areas, traditional uses, and historical uses… that they used the land for, for millennia.

“Then we had to go out on the land and they pointed out all the species at risk, and to make sure we have proper habitats for their future. Because it’s a crime against a creator to kill species. And we kill species every day. We have no care for what we do. We’re so arrogant that we just destroy life around us, every day. They wanted to make sure that those species will be protected.”

He continues, pointing to a land use map delineated by various coloured and shaded zones, “The potential recreational areas [are for teaching] their children about how important it is to retain life on the land. And in doing so, showing the paths of different animals that had to be respected. So we respect the lives of all the animals around us. We had to even plan where they went for water. We had to make sure we respected their paths. 

“And also to make sure the water source would be protected. And planning proper buffers around water so that the wetland plants that purify the water have an opportunity to be able to work with the way of nature, as the water flows to the wetlands before it flows into the creeks.

“We made certain that where we were developing, we weren’t going to destroy nature, because how can you have a future when you destroy all your life givers? Because the life givers, for us, are all the animals and birds, the fish, the plants…without them, how can we live? They gave up their lives so that we can live. So we have to respect them […] unless they thrive, we cannot thrive. 

“You destroy your life givers, you destroy yourself. What are you gonna eat? A bunch of dollars?

“This is land use planning where you plan for land and nature, working together in harmony and balance, respect, and care. This is the way you plan. 

“The way you learn how to plan, is absolutely insanity. You don’t even plan for the next generation. You destroy all life around you. You destroy forests, rivers. Look at our cities! Our cities are like grid-like cancerous growths that just expand like a virus on the planet, like a cancer. Polluting everything around them. It’s like a cancer that has no brain… it destroys its host and then at the end it gets destroyed too, because when the host dies it dies too. You can’t act like a virus and expect anything other than the result we’re getting on the planet right now. What kind of planning is that?”

“That’s planning for no future for our children.”

“[The elders] said, ‘don’t plan it like they planned Kamloops, because they planned it around their sewage systems […] instead of planning it around life and vitality. All the run-off from the roads and roofs of their houses, and all the pollution […] runs into the river and kills all the salmon. Don’t be like those settlers. They don’t respect the river, they don’t respect the salmon, they don’t respect life.’

Cardinal also planned the area, which was very dry, so that water could run on the land rather than in pipes. The plan was designed so that water would follow the drainage patterns of the land, and then collect in ponds with wetland plants that purify the water. Vehicular and pedestrian traffic was separated so that children and elders would not have to cross busy roads. Cardinal first designed the residential areas as cul-de-sacs, but the women in the community objected. “They said, ‘this is still too patriarchal… because you still have houses separated from each other in rows, and in doing so you separate the women from each other so you can control [them].’” The separation of houses inhibited the fostering of social networks between neighbouring women, children, and families. He then modified the design into circular clusters of five residential buildings, with a green recreational space for children in the center and roads on the outside of the clusters. Cardinal also designed Ouje’ Bougoumou Village for the Ouje’ Bougoumou Cree First Nation according to his circular cluster model.

“When women get together they will change things. Because they’re thinking of their children.”

Cardinal also stresses the importance of community consultation and designing in collaboration with communities, as opposed to making assumptions about the needs of these communities. Throughout his design process for the new Aanischaaukamikw Cree Cultural Institute in Ouje’ Bougoumou, he modified his design and presented it to the community at least eight times, until the community was satisfied with the proposed building. “Each person speaks from their heart. There’s no debate, it’s not about who’s right, or who wins, it’s about listening. Decisions are made by consensus. […] A lot of times people don’t know what they want, but they know what they don’t want, and that’s valuable information. So you have to listen to them.” As seen in the final design, the sloping roof of the building was intended to emulate the traditional shaptwam building form, and to reflect the desires of the local Cree community and house a cultural and artistic space. 

For another ongoing project, Cardinal was tasked with designing residential buildings in Elsipogtog First Nations to address a housing crisis, in which existing homes were deteriorating from mould. He uses existing construction technology to design affordable, durable, and prefabricated homes, using solid wood as opposed to drywall, which has a tendency to collect moisture and thus form mould. He also aims to design these homes with net zero energy consumption, reducing utility costs for its inhabitants.

Fluid Forms

Many of Cardinal’s buildings are characterized by fluid, curvilinear forms. One of his most famous works, St. Mary’s Church in Red Deer, Alberta, is exemplary of his style; as he was designing the structure in the 1960s, he recalls, he relied on computers in order to solve thousands of mathematical equations simultaneously, and was told that his design was mathematically impossible. He headed to Chicago, where there was a computer that was capable of processing and proving these equations fast enough, and was able to formulate the fluid forms of the structure. St. Mary’s Church featured a swooping roof that was designed to create acoustics within the church that would carry sound without a microphone.

More of his famous works include the Canadian Museum of History, the National Museum of the American Indian, and the Adelante Healthcare Building. Commenting on his signature style, Cardinal explains, “All my buildings are curved because I respect the power of women and I want that expressed in the architecture and the forms of architecture. All my buildings are female. The greeks had Doric and Ionic forms, male and female forms, in their architecture. I chose my architecture to be Ionic, to be female-oriented, because I want my buildings to […] nurture people […] and provide them care, and love, and beauty.”

Architecture and Urban Planning as Colonial Practice

Cardinal rejects the colonial and capitalist structures that permeate architecture and urban design, recentering planning on the interests of communities, their continuity with the land, the environment, and life. Architectural practice and urban planning often reflect neoliberal, uncritical, and colonial tendencies. Concepts such as “sustainability” and “green roofs” are often used as nothing more than marketable buzzwords, attractive in concept but never upheld and implemented in practice. Urban planning has historically been and is still used as a settler-colonial tool of control, dominance, segregation, and the oppression of Indigenous peoples. Many post-colonial cities in the Global South, including those in Malaysia, India, Indonesia, and South Africa, were master-planned by European colonizers to segregate Indigenous and racialized people from white settlers, thus enforcing colonial rule and upholding white supremacy. This is also practiced in occupied Palestine by the Israeli government as a means of controlling Palestinian land and upholding an apartheid regime. Moreover, in North America, settlers on unceded land use urban planning and policy as a means of racial segregation. Land use policies such as racial zoning, for example, were first enacted in the US in the 20th century to push Black, Indigenous, immigrant, and racialized people out of desirable residential locations and distance them from white residents.

As Cardinal finished his lecture, he returned his gaze to the feather in his hand. “There’s always these ‘experts’ that know all about everything. They come in and they don’t speak from here at all,” he says, gesturing to his heart. “They speak from the head. To me, I think that when you’re designing a building you should speak from your heart. My culture tells me that the soft power of love is much greater than the hard power of force. That’s what my elders have always taught me.”

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Former State Representative Kaniela Ing has also expressed his objection to the TMT,citing massive environmental destruction as a result of similar projects in the past. “What I keep hearing is, ‘It’s just a telescope, it’s not a pipeline’ – no,” says Ing. “This is an 18-story massive structure that has a footprint of at least six football fields in a county that only allows 6-story buildings. And it’s in a conservation district. So even if […] you care about the environment at all, this is a really dangerous precedent and our Mauna has already seen oil spills from past telescopes.”

Mauna Kea is a sacred burial and ceremonial site, known as the piko, or “umbilical cord” of Kānaka Maoli, the Indigenous people of Hawai’i. On July 10th, after the construction of the TMT was announced to begin the week of July 15, a group of activists arrived at the base of Mauna Kea to peacefully protest the $1.4 billion project and protect Mauna Kea from further desecration. The protesters included Native Hawaiians known as kūpuna, or “elders,” and k’iai, or “protectors.” For the past six weeks, between 1,000 and 2,000 anti-TMT activists have gathered and camped at the base of the mountain,blocking the Mauna Kea Access Road.

On July 17, police in riot gear arrested 35 kūpuna, who were protesting peacefully by blocking construction vehicles from passing through the access road. The kūpuna were released shortly after and charged with “obstruction of government operations.” That same day, Hawai’i governor David Ige issued an emergency order that granted greater authority to police to remove activists from Mauna Kea.

The TMT, if built, would be the world’s largest telescope, situated on a 13,796-foot summit. However, Indigenous activists and k’iai emphasize that this project would further desecrate Mauna Kea, as the mountain is already home to 13 telescopes in 12 research facilities. Since 1964, the land on which these facilities were built has been managed by the University of Hawai’i, which leases the land from the State of Hawai’i for $1 a year, and subleases this land to multi-national, government funded research facilities for the same amount. The university originally leased the area for the purpose of building one telescope, but has since mismanaged the land and ignored the concerns and protests of Native Hawaiians.

Pua Case, a Native Hawaiian activist who has been fighting against the construction of the TMT for the past decade, shared on Democracy Now! that despite failing to meet the eight criteria required to build in a conservation zone, the TMT project permit was approved by the Hawai’i Supreme Court in 2018. Case also clarifies that Native Hawaiians are not against science, as the media often suggests, but against the destruction and desecration of a sacred mountain. Kēhau Lyons, another Native Hawaiian activist, agrees: “Hawaiians are not anti-science, we are anti-desecration.”

Anti-TMT activists also emphasize that their demonstrations are part of a greater struggle for Indigenous sovereignty, as well as ongoing resistance against colonialism. This resistance extends back to 1893, when the US government illegally invaded Hawai’i, overthrew the Hawaiian government, and violently stole the land from Kānaka Maoli. Activists highlight the ways in which the TMT project exemplifies how the US continues to benefit from colonial violence enacted against Native Hawaiians, the historic suppression of Native Hawaiian culture and language, and the continuous desecration of Indigenous land. In the 1970s, a period known as the Hawaiian Renaissance was marked by Indigenous resistance and political activism as Native Hawaiians fought for autonomy and sovereignty, as well as an end to the US military occupation of the island of Kaho`olawe. The island was being used as a target for bombing drills, a practice the US military only ended in the 1990s. Some Native Hawaiians who were present at the protests in the 1970s are also present at the demonstrations on Mauna Kea today.

From Standing Rock to Wet’suwet’en, many more activists defending sacred Indigenous land and water across the globe have expressed solidarity with those at Mauna Kea. As the Indigenous resistance against TMT continues, the defenders of Mauna Kea encourage those abroad to stand in solidarity with their struggle against the desecration of sacred land and for Indigenous sovereignty.

Indigenous activists have also encouraged students from universities that are members of The Association of Canadian Universities for Research in Astronomy (ACURA), such as McGill, to urge their universities to divest from the TMT. Ashley Bach, former president of Indigenous Student Alliance at McGill, stated, “just because it isn’t happening in Canada, doesn’t mean that it doesn’t matter.” Eve Tuck, a professor at the University of Toronto, added, “universities cannot claim to be reconciling with Indigenous communities when they are using armed police to intimidate, arrest, and threaten Indigenous peoples in the name of research.”

For more information on Mauna Kea and how to get involved, visit protectmaunakea.net 

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Photos by Arno Pedram

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