"Walking With Our Sisters"

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Photo credit: Christi Belcourt.

"Moccasin tops created by beadworkers from the Cattaraugus Reservation in New York"

Moccasin tops created by beadworkers from the Cattaraugus Reservation in New York.

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Photo by Christi Belcourt.

"Moccasin tops created by Vanessa Dion Fletcher"

Moccasin tops created by Vanessa Dion Fletcher.

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Photo by Christi Belcourt.

"Moccasin tops created by Florence Moses of Whitehorse"

Moccasin tops created by Florence Moses of Whitehorse.

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WALKING WITH OUR SISTERS

Exhibition commemorates missing and murdered aboriginal women

By Nicole Bauberger

Christi Belcourt, a Métis artist based in Espanola, Ont., was looking for a way to bring attention to the issue of violence against aboriginal women when she had the idea for an installation of moccasin vamps – the top part that’s often beaded. Her idea has quickly taken on a life of its own with collaborators from across Canada and beyond.

The project, Walking With Our Sisters, will see artists to create 600 pairs of moccasin tops – one set for each woman thought by aboriginal groups to have gone missing or been murdered in Canada over the last 20 years. At each venue on the project’s tour, the floor will be covered with red fabric. The vamps will be set out on grey cloth that winds through the space like a trail. “Unfinished moccasins, unfinished lives: the path they never got to finish walking,” says Belcourt. Local elders will open each show with ceremonies appropriate to the territory and visitors are expected to remove their shoes. “Because this subject is so horrific, we’re dealing with it in a serious and sacred manner.”          

Belcourt began the project by contacting friends and then created a Facebook page. Within a week, it had 2,000 members. The tour – some 20 communities and counting – was to open at the Haida Gwaii Museum in August. It’s at the Telus Centre Atrium at the University of Alberta in Edmonton from Sept. 30 to Oct. 14 and the First Nations University Gallery in Regina from Nov. 4 to Dec. 20. For information, go to walkingwithoursisters.ca.