05/05/2026
An excellent read (plus resources) for MMIWGR Day of Awareness.
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After Our Need for Redress:
The Visibility of the Red Dress
By Deacon Colleen Bernu & Brother Matthew Cobb
The REDress Project was launched in 2010 by Metis artist, Jaime Black. At its core, this is an act of art as resistance. By displaying empty red dresses in public spaces across Canada and the United States, these installations aesthetically raise our collective awareness to ask where thousands of Indigenous women, girls, transgendered, and Two-Spirited people have gone.
In our current context, 2026 marks the 250th year of nationhood for the United States of America and the 534th year since expansionism and global commerce led to the planting of the first European flag on lands in the west. The impact of founding a democracy that is co-dependent on commodity-centered, consumer-driven political economies, has obtained full saturation - there is no more “virgin land.” From soils to seeds, from air to water, extending now to our very relationships (the premise behind AI trained interfaces), we are in need of more awareness and an interventionist approach to stop extraction of vitality and vibrancy from our Broken Lands.
Consider our relationships, specifically how we relate as Indigenous Peoples and non-indigenous peoples. The Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women & Relatives (i.e., MMIW/R) crisis is ultimately caused by unawareness, isn't it? Therefore, awareness of the crisis, as such, must be the actual occasion when the heart opens to feeling for the first time the full impact of shedding light in a dark place. Awareness implicates!
Furthermore, consider how MMIW/R is a crisis deeply rooted in colonial violence, systemic racism, policies of erasure, and persistent injustices. It is part of the spectrum of violence perpetrated towards Indigenous Peoples for centuries. Lack of legal protections and proper investigations, erosion of Tribal sovereignty, theft of Indigenous land, lack of media coverage, and minimized government action have resulted in families and communities taking matters into their own hands by forming search parties, solidarity marches, mutual aid networks, political action groups, and complex storytelling networks that refuse to let the lives of those missing and murdered be erased.
The REDress Project provides a way for communities to express grief, demand accountability, and stand in solidarity. It is a first step towards honoring all humanity as valuable and worthy of a life lived safe from violence.
The statistics are staggering. In the United States, murder is the third leading cause of death for Indigenous women. More than half of Indigenous women report experiencing sexual assault at least once in their lifetime, and 4 out of 5 Indigenous women report surviving acts of violence. A problem this pervasive does not occur by accident, and it will not go away without persistent pressure for systemic change. Raising a red dress on May 5th is an essential place to begin this work.
Then, on May 6th and everyday afterward, we must carry the visibility of the red dress into the places of policy-making and dismantle the systems of oppression that created the need for red dresses in the first place.
We must work to build relationships grounded in solidarity that recognize God’s creative face in the face of each Indigenous person.
We must explore ways to reverse the intentionality towards erasure of Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous culture, and Indigenous knowledge systems.
We must work to support Tribal sovereignty, truth-telling, and acts of reparations like Land Back, living into treaty obligations, and supporting Indigenous-led organizations.
The red dress is the first step. It is designed so that the injustice created by colonialism cannot be unseen. It serves as a visual reminder of those who have suffered the most by these injustices. It demands that we each learn how we can put an end to the systemic injustices that led to the problem. It’s a call to action so that future generations will no longer need to hang red dresses.
Join us for the Beta Test of our new curriculum:
https://www.brokenlandstrust.earth
Learn more at:
● https://www.niwrc.org/policy-center/mmiwr
● https://www.werideforher.com/
● https://www.miwsac.org/minnesota-coalition/projects/relatives/
● https://nativepartnership.org/four-passionate-leaders-shine-a-light-on-native-womens-health/
● https://www.brokenlands.org/episodes/
Episodes page for Broken Lands: A Podcast About Reparations and Honoring Our Treaties
