Memorial honouring missing and murdered Indigenous women opens

A travelling memorial to honour and remember more than 1,800 missing and murdered Indigenous women has opened in Halifax. 

Hundreds of beaded and embroidered handmade moccasin tops, known as vamps, are nestled amid cedar bows as part of the installation in the art gallery at Mount St. Vincent University.

Each pair is adorned with buttons, fur, porcupine quills and even photos. 

Each pair of vamps represents a woman, girl or two spirit person and their unfinished story. Some were made by family members and each one is unique, said elder Geri Musqua-LeBlanc, who helped organize the installation.

'They have no name'

Musqua-LeBlanc said too often, the women's stories are forgotten or overlooked. She said the art installation is a way to teach people about the issue.

"They have 'Jane Doe' and case numbers. They have no name, no face. All they know is it an Indigenous woman. That is the sad part," said Geri Musqua-LeBlanc.

"Government, law enforcement agencies have a way of treating our women's deaths as unremarkable. That's a form of violence. That has to stop. We wish the public would support us in asking the government to do that," she said. 

The Walking with Our Sisters project started more than five years ago when Métis artist Christi Belcourt asked family members of missing or murdered Indigenous women to submit beaded or crafted moccasin tops in their memory.

• Blog: 1700 unfinished pairs of moccasins memorialize the missing and murdered

Only stop in Atlantic Canada

The memorial has been touring Canada and parts of the United States since late 2013. The installation at the Mount is the only stop scheduled for Atlantic Canada. It opened Saturday and people can visit it until Feb. 1. 

"We pray that the families are going to find closure and peace," said Musqua-LeBlanc. 

Though she had never beaded before, Denise Maloney Pictou created a vamp for the project. Her mother Annie Mae Pictou Aquash's was murdered in southwest South Dakota in 1976. 

"This represents an opportunity for a lot of [family members] to memorialize and honour them in ways their family members have never experienced and they as family members have never experienced at a national level and in such a public way," she told Radio-Canada. 

'Women are not statistics'

Maloney Pictou hopes the installation reinforced the need and importance of an inquiry on missing and murdered indigenous women. 

"Our women are not statistics. They were living, loving human beings that deserve justice as much as anybody else in this country." 

Michele Graveline, part of the committee that helped organize the installation at the Mount, said each time it is set up somewhere, it takes a slightly new form.  

Travelling together

Elders from communities across the region were invited to Saturday's opening and consulted during the planning stages, she said.

Along the room's walls are the images of six boats, a reflection of the coastal communities in Atlantic Canada, Graveline said.

"The vision is that the sisters are travelling together on the water. We were really touched by that," she said. 

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