REDress
Art, Activism, and the Power of Presence
- Publisher
- Portage & Main Press
- Initial publish date
- Apr 2025
- Category
- NON-CLASSIFIABLE, Activism & Social Justice, NON-CLASSIFIABLE, Women's Studies
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781774921388
- Publish Date
- Apr 2025
- List Price
- $38.00
Classroom Resources
Where to buy it
Description
A powerful anthology uniting the voices of Indigenous women, Elders, grassroots community activists, artists, academics, and family members affected by the tragedy of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit people from across Turtle Island.
In 2010, Métis artist Jaime Black-Morsette created the REDress Project—an art installation consisting of placing red dresses in public spaces as a call for justice for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls, and Two-Spirit people (MMIWG2S). Symbolizing both absence and presence, the red dresses ignite a reclamation of voice and place for MMIWG2S. Fifteen years later, the symbol of the empty red dress endures as families continue to call for action.
In this anthology, Jaime Black-Morsette shares her own intimate stories and memories of the REDress Project along with the voices of Indigenous women, Elders, grassroots community activists, artists, academics, and family members affected by this tragedy. Together they use the power of their collective voice to not only call for justice for MMIWG2S, but honour Indigenous women as keepers and protectors of land, culture, and community across Turtle Island.
About the authors
Jaime Black-Morsette (she/them) is a Red River Métis artist and activist, with family scrip signed in the community of St Andrews, Manitoba. Jaime lives and works on her home territory near the confluence of the Red and Assiniboine rivers. Founder of The REDress project in 2009, Black-Morsette has been using their art practice as a way to gather community and create action and change around the epidemic of violence against Indigenous women and girls across Turtle Island for over a decade. Black-Morsette's interdisciplinary art practice includes immersive film and video, installation art, photography and performance art practices. Her work explores themes of memory, identity, place and resistance.
Jaime Black-Morsette's profile page
KC Adams (she/her/hers) is a Cree/Ojibway/British Winnipeg-based artist who graduated from Concordia University with a B.F.A in studio arts. Adams has had several solo exhibitions, group exhibitions and was included in the PHOTOQUAI: Biennale des images du monde in Paris, France. KC has participated in residencies at the Banff Centre, the Confederation Art Centre in Charlottetown, the National Museum of the American Indian and the Parramatta Arts Gallery in Australia. Adams has received several grants and awards from Winnipeg Arts Council, Manitoba Arts Council and Canada Council for the Arts. KC’s work is in many permanent collections Nationally and Internationally. Twenty pieces from the Cyborg Hybrid series are in the permanent collection of the National Art Gallery in Ottawa and from the installation Birch Bark Ltd, four trees are in the collection of the Canadian Consulate of Australia, NSW. Adams was the set designer for the Royal Winnipeg Ballet’s Going Home Star: Truth and Reconciliation. Adams has designed public art sculptures for the Winnipeg Forks South Point Project and the United Way of Winnipeg called Community. Adams have been teaching about Indigenous pottery and learning from elders at the annual nibi (water) gathering at Whiteshell Provincial Park. KC recently won the Winnipeg Arts Council’s Making A Mark Award and the Aboriginal Circle of Educator’s Trailblazing Award. She is an instructor in Visual and Aboriginal Art at Brandon University.
Mackenzie Anderson Linklater (she/her/hers) is an artist who creates with beading, printmaking, and installation. She received a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with Honors at the School of Art at the University of Manitoba. Mackenzie is first degree Midewiwin at the Minweyweygan Lodge in Roseau River First Nation and her true name is Mispon Kisikaw Iskwew or Goonagiizhagokwe, which translates to Snowy Sky Woman.
Mackenzie Anderson Linklater's profile page
Marjorie Beaucage is a proud Métis Two Spirit Filmmaker, cultural worker, and community based video activist. Her work as a community based independent artist, seeks to question, empower, and change the ways we look at ourselves...seeing from the inside out. Marjorie was a cofounder of the Aboriginal Film and Video Art Alliance. As a ‘Runner’ she worked as a cultural Ambassador to negotiate self governing partnerships and alliances with the Banff Centre for the Arts, V-tape, the Canada Council for the Arts which resulted in the development of Aboriginal Arts programs. She also programmed the first Aboriginal Film Festival in Toronto in 1992 .
Marjorie Beaucage's profile page
Christi Belcourt is a Michif (Métis) visual artist with a deep respect for Mother Earth, the traditions and the knowledge of her people. In addition to her paintings she is also known as a community based artist, environmentalist and advocate for the lands, waters and Indigenous peoples. She is currently a lead organizer for the Onaman Collective which focuses on resurgence of language and land based practices. She is also the lead coordinator for Walking With Our Sisters, a community-driven project that honours murdered or missing Indigenous women. Her work Giniigaaniimenaaning (Looking Ahead) commemorates residential school survivors, their families and communities to mark the Prime Minister's historic Apology in 2008 and is installed at Centre Block on Parliament Hill commissioned by the Government of Canada. She was named the Aboriginal Arts Laureate by the Ontario Arts Council in 2015. In 2016 she won a Governor General's Innovation Award and was named the winner of the 2016 Premier's Awards in the Arts. Author of Medicines To Help Us (Gabriel Dumont Institute, 2007) and Beadwork (Ningwakwe Learning Press, 2010). Christi's work is found within the permanent collections of the National Gallery of Canada, the Art Gallery of Ontario, Gabriel Dumont Institute, the Indian and Inuit Art Collection, Parliament Hill, the Thunder Bay Art Gallery and Canadian Museum of Civilization, First People's Hall.
Christi Belcourt's profile page
Judy Da Silva is an Elder, award-winning activist, and community leader in Grassy Narrows First Nation. She became an advocate for Indigenous rights and environmental justice after a chemical plant dumped 9,000 kilograms of mercury into the river near her community, poisoning the people of Grassy Narrows in the 1960s and 70s. She was awarded the Michael Sattler Award for Peace from the German Mennonite Peace Committee in 2013, and the Extraordinary International Activist award from Human Rights Watch in 2017.
Karine Duhamel is Anishinaabe-Métis and an off-reserve member of Red Rock First Nation. From 2018 to 2019, Karine was Director of Research for the historic National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, drafting the Final Report, directing the Legacy Archive, and managing the Forensic Document Review Project. In 2020 and 2021, she chaired the Data Sub-Working group that created the MMIWG National Action Plan Data Strategy. She is now Director, Indigenous Strategy for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Deantha Edmunds is Canada’s first Inuk professional classical singer and an award-winning performer. Deantha’s most recent album, her award-winning solo album Connections (2022), earned her a nomination for a 2023 East Coast Music Award for Indigenous Artist of the Year. In 2023, Deantha was longlisted for the prestigious Kenojuak Ashevak Memorial Award from the Inuit Art Foundation.
Cambria Harris (she/her/hers), West Flying Sparrow Woman, lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and is an Ojibway member of the Long Plain First Nation. Cambria is one of the leading voices of the Search The Landfill Movement in response to the province of Manitoba’s refusal to search for her mother’s remains in a local landfill. Cambria uses her voice to call for government action and fight for justice for not only her mother, but all those affected by MMIWG2S.
Jaimie Isaac is a curator and interdisciplinary artist, Anishinaabe member of Sagkeeng First Nation and is of British heritage. She was the Chief Curator at the Art Gallery of Greater Victoria from 2021-2023, and advisor 2023-2024. She served as the Curator of Contemporary and Indigenous Arts at the Winnipeg Art Gallery 2015-2021. Isaac holds a degree in Art History From University of Winnipeg and a Masters of Arts from the University of British Columbia focused on decolonizing gallery/museum practices.
Casey Koyczan is a Dene interdisciplinary artist from Yellowknife, NT, who uses various mediums to communicate how culture and technology can grow together in order for us to develop a better understanding of who we are, where we come from, and what we will be. He creates with whatever tools necessary to bring an idea to fruition, and specializes in sculpture, installation, 3D/VR/AR/360, video, and audio works such as music, soundscapes, and film scores.
Crystal Lepscier (Waqsepāēhketukiw) is an enrolled member of the Little Shell Tribe of Chippewa. In May 2022, Crystal completed her Education Doctorate in First Nations Education from UW – Green Bay. She earned both her Master of Science degree in Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis (2011) and her Bachelor of Fine Arts in Studio Art (2005) from UW-Madison. She currently works at UWGB as the First Nations Student Success Coordinator.
Crystal Lepscier's profile page
Lee-Ann Martin is an independent curator living in Ottawa. She is currently working with the Walter Phillips Gallery to mentor emerging curators and develop programming for their Banff International Curatorial Institute. Previously, Martin was head curator at the MacKenzie Art Gallery, Regina (1998-2000), where she continues as adjunct curator, First Nations Art. While at the MacKenzie, she co-curated, with Morgan Wood, EXPOSED: Aesthetics of Aboriginal Erotic Art, and, with Bob Boyer, The Powwow: An Art History. She held the positions of First Peoples Equity Coordinator at the Canada Council for the Arts (1994-1998) and Interim Curator of Contemporary Indian Art at the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull, Quebec (1992-1994). In 1992, Martin co-curated, with Gerald McMaster, the internationally travelling exhibition INDIGENA: Perspectives of Indigenous Peoples on 500 Years. She has curated numerous exhibitions and published essays on critical issues in contemporary First Nations art in Canada, and served as coordinator for the 1990 National Task Force on Museums and First Peoples. She holds a master's degree.
Diane Maytwayahsing is an Anishinaabe woman with Scottish ancestry who lives in Manitouabee (Where the spirit sits) in the Whiteshell area on the Manitoba and Ontario border. Her Anishinaabe name is Ozawa Giizis Ikwe (Yellow Sun Woman), and her family Clan is Migizi (Bald Eagle). Diane is an Indigenous Knowledge Keeper and Heritage Interpreter of the Petroforms, which are known as the Bannock Point Petroforms in Whiteshell Park. Over the past 8 years, Diane has conducted Indigenous Matriarchal presentations in universities, centers, and in the Whiteshell Park as land-based education.
Diane Maytwayashing's profile page
Cathy Merrick is a proud Cree woman from the Cross Lake Band of Indians in Northern Manitoba. Merrick's leadership journey began as a Councillor in Pimicikamak, where she served for twelve years. After forty-four years of male leadership, Merrick was the second woman to be elected as Chief of Pimicikamak in 2013 and remained Chief for an impactful five years as per Pimicikamak election law. In October 2022, she made history by becoming the first female Grand Chief elected to the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs.
Sherry Farrell Racette (Metis/Algonquin/Irish) is an interdisciplinary scholar with an active arts and curatorial practice. She has worked extensively in archives and museum collections with an emphasis on retrieving women’s voices and recovering knowledge. Currently teaching in the Faculty of Media, Art and Performance (art history), she was previously cross-appointed to the Departments of Native Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies at the University of Manitoba, and the Department of Art History at Concordia University, Montreal. In 2021 she received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the University Art Association of Canada.
Sherry Farrell Racette's profile page
Gladys Radek is a human rights activist originally from the Gitxsan Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia, known as the Highway of Tears. Gladys’s niece, Tamara Lynn Chipman, disappeared out of Prince Rupert, BC, in 2005. In response, Gladys co-founded the grassroots organization Walk4Justice in 2008 to bring the families affected by MMIWG together. Gladys’s efforts played a significant role in the National Inquiry into Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls. Today, she continues to raise awareness about MMIWG and advocates for governments to act on the 231 Calls to Justice from the inquiry.
Zoey Roy is an award winning Cree-Dene Michif spoken word poet, teaching artist, and creative consultant based out of Ottawa, Ontario. She is a PhD student at York University, focusing on songwriting as future-building for Indigenous nations. Zoey has received the Queen Diamond Jubilee Medal, the Women of Distinction Award in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, the Congress of Aboriginal People Youth Leadership Award, the Indspire Award, and the Indigenous Graduate Leadership Award at the University of Saskatchewan.
Jennifer Lee Smith is a Red River Métis Curator, Writer and Arts Administrator living on Treaty 1 Territory/Winnipeg. Her work focuses on the relationships between Indigenous artists, connections to land and material culture.
