The

   RedDress 

           Project

Through my roles as a Peer Support and Harm Reduction worker at The 519 , Workman Arts  and Centre For Addiction And Mental Health's (CAMH) Collaborative Learning College it is my goal to create programming that engages community art projects, but also highlights social awareness around important causes. From building relationships with community members and having  conversations about what community programming they would like to see, it became clear that many expressed wanting to see more projects geared towards Indigenous, Aboriginal, First Nations, Metis, and Native cultural themes. Growing up in Timmins, Ontario, where these cultures are prevalent, I have always been inspired by the beauty of these traditions and I made it my priority to showcase in my own way, efforts to materialize an example of reconciliation. 

The REDress project was inspired by artist Jaime Black, who began the project as an aesthetic response to more than 1000 missing and murdered aboriginal women in Canada. The project is also a travelling art installation and on 2 separate occasions, the installation was vandalized which further highlights the need for discussion & awareness around these missing women. The first exhibit to be vandalized was at Acadia University and the second was at CAMH.

As part of my final project for Yale University/CAMH's Let(s) Lead Transformational Leadership Academy, I awarded a $1000 honorarium by The Rotman Family Foundation and I decided to invest it into The REDress Project which helped pay for textile materials, dresses, this website and helped to pay for local indigenous speakers at various workshops I organized. I thought what better way to make up for the vandalized dresses than to adorn more dresses with more shine and more sparkle for a greater impact. The dresses were donated by community members and myself and worked on by community members via these workshops and re-donated back to the REDress project.

The dresses have been on display in the Fabernak windows of The 519 (June/July 2022) and my hope is that these dresses make their way around Toronto (and beyond) in order to continue to raise awareness for MMIW and showcase the beautiful work community members poured into this project.

Video 1: REDress Textile Workshops via The 519 and CAMH's Collaborative Learning College,  window display to raise awareness for the 1000 + Missing & Murdered Indigenous/Aboriginal Women and Girls in Canada.

Video 2:  Montage of various artistic contributions influenced by MMIW / Strawberry Ceremony.  This is the video which was projected in the window displays for the REDresses.

Video 3. This video focuses on showcasing all of the amazing and beautiful textile work community members applied to their red dresses. It also features the various skills acquired via the textile Redress Workshops: beading, vinyl heat press, wire work, sequins, apliques, weaving, sewing etc. Although the dresses are meant to be showcased hung in trees, in order to avoid further vandalism, I constructed trees so the project could be displayed safely in the front and side windows of The 519.

Red Dresses Installation/The 519 2023 for National Indigenous People's Day

Promotional Media, Artwork and Events I created for The Red Dress Project.

I also curated a youtube playlist which showcases Canadian Indigenous/Aboriginal/First Nations/Metis music/musicians.