NEWS RELEASE
RED DRESS PROJECT
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With the blessings of its originator, Jaime Black, a Metis artist and art educator originally from Thunder Bay, we are honoured to present a REDress Project in downtown Orillia from April 26 to May 10.
The project launch will be held Friday, April 26 at noon at the Orillia Museum of Art and History.
The REDress Project was inspired by Black's work as a teacher in Opaskawayak Cree Nation, also known as The Pas, where Helen Betty Osborne was brutally murdered while walking home one night by two young men who were not charged or sentenced until years later; and by a group of 300 women in Colombia who had the courage to create a moving four-hour performance piece to protest their missing and murdered loved ones in the main square in Bogota.
The REDress Project focuses around the issue of Missing or Murdered Indigenous Women (MMIW) across Canada. It is an installation art project based on an aesthetic response to this critical and current national issue.
According to Black, the installation’s goal is to evoke a presence through the marking of absence. This project will serve as a visual reminder of the staggering number of women who are no longer with us.
Cedar Place, located in Rama First Nation that is owned and operated by Dawn Ireland, the Oneida Nation, and MPP Jill Dunlop are partnering to re-create a REDress installation throughout the city to draw attention to the on-going assaults on Indigenous women and to create a space for sharing their untold stories.
Special Yaw^ko goes out to Jaime Black for giving her blessings for this Installation, the Orillia Museum of Art & History for creating space for this event, the Orillia Downtown Management Board, and Simcoe North MPP Jill Dunlop for her ongoing dedication to the MMIW issue.
The special guest speaker at the launch will be Becky Big Canoe, Ojibway of Georgina Island, a grandmother and Indigenous activist.
For more information on the REDress project, visit their website.
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