Project brings attention to MMIWG2S on Red Dress Day
Students at Lord Selkirk Regional Comprehensive Secondary School are recognizing the loss of murdered and missing Indigenous women, girls, and two-spirited people on Red Dress Day by making representations of the many people who have been lost throughout Canada.
“The faceless dolls represent missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls and two-spirit individuals who have gone missing over the years, whether they have been kidnapped, or they’ve been murdered, or they’ve gone missing, and no one really knows where they are. The point of having no faces is because we don’t know who some of these people are. And so, we’re honouring them and hopefully bringing more awareness about this major issue in our community,” said LSRCSS grade 10, 11 and 12 textile arts and design Teacher Caitlin Schick.
This project was started at LSRCSS in 2018.
“A couple of teachers started with making 1600 dolls and they had an exhibit, and they displayed all of them. [This time] we displayed all those dolls, in addition to the ones that we made this year. So, we have just upwards of 2000 out there,” said Schick.
This project will be staying up in the school for the next few weeks and was up on Red Dress Day which took place on May 5.
“The textile arts class was really supportive. They were helping me with cutting out dolls and getting the kits ready so we could [have] kits for each of the classrooms that wanted to do the dolls,” said Schick.
From there, about 20 different teachers incorporated the Faceless Dolls Project into their curriculum teaching students in our region about MMIWG2S.
Schick explained that doing a project like this is important education for local students.
“Some of our students have relatives that have gone missing or people that they know, and I think this is such an important issue for us. I, myself, I just wanted to lift up the students and acknowledge this is something you’re dealing with every day, and we don’t talk about it and you’re struggling with this trauma, if someone has gone missing and you’re coming to school every day, and sometimes we don’t talk about it. So, it was just bringing that to the forefront,” she said.
When she taught her students about the project and what they were going to be doing, Schick said that they discussed who these people were.
“I just gave them the supplies and then had conversations about why are we doing this. And we wondered what kind of hair colour did they have? Do they have gray hair? Are they older? Are they children? What were they wearing? So, it was just really meaningful, and it gave [the students] time to reflect on the people that have gone missing. It was a really powerful thing for a lot of students and I was really happy that they got that time and space,” she said.
Grade 11 Student Jordyn Recksiedler was part of the textiles class that made the kits for other classes. The textiles class students also made their own dolls.
“Me and my friends, we already knew about the missing and murdered Indigenous women [girls, and two-spirited people] so it was just nice to be part of something like that. It was nice to see that our school is doing something to actually bring light to it because this way people will see it and it’s not just [learning] facts. It just shows the magnitude,” said Recksiedler
The faceless dolls are now hanging all over the school, not just in the main display but throughout the high school spreading awareness.
Schick says that she hopes this project will continue every few years so that future students can also make a doll.
