An art installation honouring the lives of missing and murdered indigenous women of Canada and the United States is due to be exhibited at North Battleford's Chapel Gallery from Jan. 15 to Feb. 7, 2016, and it will be the theme of a float in the upcoming Northwest Territorial Days parade,
Three evenings this week will be devoted to preparing giant moccasin vamps to decorate the Walking With Our Sisters float. Taking place at the Allen Sapp Gallery, the work bees will be held Tuesday, Aug. 4 to Thursday, Aug. 6 from, 5 to 7 p.m.
The plan to create a float for the Aug. 10 parade comes out of a series of community conversations regarding the memorial exhibition and potential activities related to its visit to North Battleford.
Walking With Our Sisters is a massive commemorative art installation made up of more than 1,763 pairs of moccasin vamps (tops) plus 108 pairs of children’s vamps. The large collaborative art piece is being made available to the public through selected galleries and locations and has been on tour since 2013 with bookings into 2019.
The work exists as a floor installation made up of beaded vamps arranged in a winding path formation on fabric and includes cedar boughs. Viewers remove their shoes to walk on a path of cloth alongside the vamps.
To create the installation, a general call was put out to all “caring souls” who wanted to contribute a pair of moccasin tops. Women, men and children, both native and non-native, gathered in living rooms, universities, community halls and penitentiaries across North America to bead, sew, quill, weave, paint, embroider, and create mixed media pairs of moccasin tops out of the love, care and concern they have for missing or murdered women and their families, some of them their own.
Each pair of vamps represents one missing or murdered indigenous woman. The unfinished moccasins represent the unfinished lives of the women whose lives were cut short. The children’s vamps are dedicated to children who never returned home from residential schools. Together the installation represents all these women, paying respect to their lives.
In addition to the moccasin tops, 60 songs were submitted for the audio portion of the exhibit. Those songs are heard while audiences experience the exhibit.
Volunteers are also encouraged to join in the activities planned for North Battleford at any time by contacting the City of North Battleford's galleries director Leah Garven at [email protected].
