Matoaka Spirit and Medicine

This series was created in honour of the indigenous women, men, and children, whose spirits never returned home.

Across Canada, indigenous people continue to face violence at devastating rates. Indigenous women are estimated to be six times more likely to be murdered than non-indigenous women, and thousands of indigenous people have gone, missing or been taken from their families over the past several decades. These stories are often spoken about as statistics, but we are not numbers. They are innocent daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, and children, whose lives and medicine carried futures that should have continued.

The red hand print represents the silencing of our people. It carries the memory of the women who were taken, the eagle feather represents the men who fell protecting their families and nations, and the baby moccasins represent the children who were stolen from their families, traditions and homes.

It is the mark of blood, grief, and remembrance. It is also a spiritual reminder that their spirits have not disappeared, nor silenced. There remain with us, carry through our lineage, or ceremonies, or Medicine, and in the responsibility we hold to protect the generations that walk beside us now.

Indigenous women have always been life givers and carriers of medicine. Indigenous men have long stood as protectors, hunters, and leaders within their Nations. Indigenous children carry the future of their people within them. When violence touches one of these roles, it does not only impact an individual, it disturbs the balance of an entire nation.

When one of our people is lost, something sacred within the nation is disturbed.

This work honours the women whose voices were covered, the men whose strength and protection were lost to violence, and the children whose innocence was taken. These images are an ode of remembrance for all of them. The mothers, the fathers, the sons, the daughters, and the children whose stories were never finished.

We remember them not only in grief, but in the way we choose to walk forward. Protecting one another, honouring our ancestors, and remembering that Indigenous life is sacred.

No more stolen sisters