New Legacy of Hope Waniskahtan Exhibit to inspire renewed commitment to stand up against violence and promote peace

By Rick Garrick

THUNDER BAY — The Ontario Native Women’s Association’s (ONWA) Grandmother Earth Dress will be featured at Lakehead University’s Aug. 4-13 Legacy of Hope Waniskahtan Exhibit at the Thunder Bay Intercity Shopping Centre. The Grandmother Earth Dress is a traditional red Jingle Dress that was inspired by Jaime Black’s REDress Project, which honours and acknowledges Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) and 2SLGBTQQIA+.

“The REDress is significant to healing for families and loved ones of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls,” says Michele Solomon, community development manager at ONWA and Fort William councillor. “That’s been a really big part of ONWA’s work towards healing, so it is important that the Grandmother Earth Dress be present during this exhibit.”

The goal of the exhibit is to commemorate MMIWG and hopefully prevent future violence.

“This is an opportunity for family and loved ones to come and view the exhibit, but it is really important for the broader community to come and learn more about this issue that is so tragic in our world, in our community, in our country, of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls,” Solomon says. “It’s not something that has happened, it’s something that is happening. You hear of our Indigenous women missing every day, and it’s important that people are fully aware of this issue and that people be open to looking at ways to make things better.”

Lakehead University partnered with ONWA and the National Indigenous Peoples Day Committee to stage the exhibit to recognize, honour and celebrate National Indigenous Peoples Day, but due to COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic restrictions, a video was created and posted about the exhibit featuring introductory statements from the partners, Intercity Shopping Centre and Sharon Johnson, Ontario Region Project Advisory Committee member to the Waniskahtan Exhibit.

“The Legacy of Hope work and the Waniskahtan Exhibit keep alive the love, tears and memories of our lost mothers, sisters, aunties, grandmothers, family, and 2SLGBTQQIA+ members,” says Cora McGuire-Cyrette, executive director at ONWA. “The Grandmother Earth Dress proudly speaks to us like jingles in a breeze, keeping hope alive.”

Denise Baxter, vice-provost, Indigenous Initiatives at Lakehead University, says Lakehead University was honoured to collaborate with the other partners to share the exhibit with the community as part of its commitment to reconciliation through education.

“It is our hope that all who engage with the exhibit will make a renewed commitment to stand up against violence and promote peace,” Baxter says. “We know that many of our children and our youth and our two-spirited people have been victims of violence … so having the MMIWG exhibit I feel is really an important awareness piece, part of our healing, that will give families that have missing family members the opportunity to come together.”

Baxter says the exhibit will include a memory or hope wall for families that have missing or lost family members and two speakers with first-hand experience of the MMIWG issue.

“People will have a chance to learn about some of the underlying causes as to why this is happening, but also awareness on what they can do to curtail it,” Baxter says.

Lakehead University previously hosted a range of Legacy of Hope exhibits, including the Bi-Giwen: Coming Home-Truth telling from the Sixties Scoop exhibit in 2019.

“I find that they are well put together, they are well researched,” Baxter says. “They’re always built in collaboration with community and in this case, one of the organizers was from Thunder Bay.”