Red dress art project to raise awareness of murdered and missing Aboriginal women

An art project drawing attention to missing and murdered aboriginal women has been set up in and around the University of Alberta campus.

Visual Artist Jaime Black has hung red dresses along roads and in the U of A quad.

The installation project tries to raise awareness and discussion about missing and murder women in the country.

“I hope that this gets people thinking about it and gives them access to a problem and gives them access to educating themselves about it and hopefully changing the way they think about it.”

Black says the red dress represents the blood spilled and the violence against aboriginal women but also the power of feminity.

“With this project I want people to realize that all women are valuable and all women deserve to be safe in our country. It doesn’t matter what they’re doing and it doesn’t matter what they’re facing, they deserve safety.”

Black has been doing the project for 2 years. She collects the dresses from donations and so far has gathered more than 400 dresses.