Shawn Bailey

  • Black-and-white photo of Shawn Bailey seated in a classroom, holding a microphone; people sit behind him, engaging in discourse.

  • Associate Professor
    Indigenous Scholar 
    Architect

    Associate Professor
    Department of Architecture
    318 Architecture 2 Building
    56 Curry Place
    University of Manitoba
    (Fort Garry Campus)
    Winnipeg, Manitoba R3T 2M6
    T. 204-474-7234 
    F. 204-474-7532
    Shawn.Bailey@umanitoba.ca

  • Aerial view of a group of people gathered in a wooden structure with a white tarp roof in a dense forest. The scene feels adventurous and rustic.
  • A group of people sit around a glowing campfire at night, casting warm light on their faces. The surrounding area is dark, creating a cozy, intimate atmosphere.
  • Abstract image featuring a surreal, textured landscape with zebra patterns and abstract forms against a gold background, evoking a sense of chaos and movement.
  • Abstract sculpture with organic shapes and textures. Rolled paper spirals blend with mesh and wooden elements on a light background, creating a dynamic and intricate design.
  • Wooden cabin with large glass windows, elevated on a rocky hillside in a forest. The structure is surrounded by autumn foliage and conveys tranquility.
  • Outdoor gathering by a wooden cabin with large windows, surrounded by trees. People sit on the ground, creating a peaceful and communal atmosphere.

Education

  • PhD Student, University of Calgary, ongoing
  • M.Arch, University of Manitoba, 2014.
  • B.Env.D, University of Manitoba, 2006.

Professional qualifications and affiliations

  • MAA (Manitoba Association of Architects)
  • OAA (Ontario Association of Architects)

Bio

Shawn Bailey is a Red River Métis architect, educator, and researcher based between Winnipeg and Lake of the Woods. He teaches in the Department of Architecture at the University of Manitoba, where his work focuses on land-based learning, Indigenous knowledge, making, technology, and architectural practice.

A lot of his work has come from examining where and how today’s architecture emerges and is taught. Over the past several years, he has worked with students, Elders, Knowledge Keepers, cultural guides, communities, and other disciplines through professional practice, design-build projects, workshops, studios, and research guided from the land.

This work led to the development of the University of Manitoba Forest School, a place for land-based teaching and research outside the traditional classroom to test what happens when the land is not the subject or site of learning, but part of how learning takes place.

As his work has developed, Bailey has become less interested in the trends, metaphors, and justifications that surround architecture. These can too easily take precedence over architecture itself, replacing meaning, experience, and deeper intentions with the need to participate in what is current. His work instead searches for humility in architecture, grounded in relationships, making, land, and place.

His research also looks at drawing and technology, particularly the space between the hand and digital ways of working. He is interested in what happens to craft and knowledge as architecture becomes digitally controlled, but also in the opportunities that might emerge between these ways of working.

Bailey is a recipient of the ACSA New Faculty Teaching Award, the Canadian Centre for Architecture Indigenous Design Fellowship, and the D2L Innovation Award. His teaching and work have been published, exhibited, and presented nationally and internationally, including at the Seoul and Venice Architecture Biennales.

He is currently a cofounder of Wolf Island Field Station, an emerging project on Lake of the Woods that brings together pedagogy, research, and architectural practice. It is being developed as a place for inquiry, residencies, workshops, design-build projects, research, making, and small architectural projects.

Selected Publications

Arts Creation: A Curriculum of Relationally, Resurgence, and Renewal:  Decolonizing Design with Indigenous and Land-Based Paradigms.  Author: Honoure Black, Lancelot Coar, Shawn Bailey.

Canadian Architect: Decolonizing the Design Process with Five Indigenous Land-based
Paradigms.  

Public Journal: (RE)Entering Many Worlds: Teaching and Collaborating to Design the Pluriverse. Author: Robyn Adams, Aliyah Baerg, Shawn Bailey, Honoure Black, Lancelot Coar, Danton Derksen

OBL/QUE Critical Conversation:  AKI / Land.  Edited by  Natalia Escobar Castrillón & Jake Chakasm. Author: Shawn Bailey and Valdie Seymour.

Faculty and staff      Department of Architecture faculty