Red Deerians marked Red Dress Day with a walk through the streets of downtown Red Deer.
Urban Indigenous Voices Society, Red Deer Native Friendship Society and the Common Ground Garden Project teamed up to host Red Deer's Red Dress Day event, which began with a pipe ceremony led by Elder Corky Larsen-Jonasson. The attendees then walked from Common Ground Garden site at 5581 45 St. to Safe Harbour Society and back. That walk was then followed by a feast.
"We're here to bring awareness to Missing and Murdered Indigenous People, who have historically over representative in murdered and missing persons cases here in Canada," said Kelley Arnold, Nanâtawihowin Cultural Connections program director at the Red Deer Native Friendship Society.
"It's important for us to continue to have these walks to bring awareness to government so that our voices are heard and the greater non-Indigenous community understand the struggles our people go through."
Red Dress Day is the national day of awareness and remembrance for the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People and is recognized annually on May 5.
"I'm grateful for this year's walk because it's the first time we are representing all Indigenous people who have been missing or murdered," Arnold noted.
"Normally we walk for our sisters and our Two Spirit. But we've had people in the Red Deer community come forward to ask us, 'What about my son who is missing?' We wanted to be inclusive to all of those who have been missing or murdered."
The red dress movement, where red dresses are hung from windows and trees to represent the pain and loss felt by loved ones and survivors, was inspired by Métis artist Jaime Black.
Originally starting as the REDdress art installation, Red Dress Day became a grassroots movement across North America. The project was made up of 600 community-donated red dresses, which were later placed in public spaces throughout Winnipeg and across Canada.
The artist chose the colour red after speaking with an Indigenous friend who told her that is the only colour spirits can see. Red dresses are used to call the spirits of missing and murdered women and girls back to their loved ones. The goal was to speak to the gendered and racialized nature of violent crimes against Indigenous women and to evoke a presence by marking absence.
