Walking With Our Sisters is a commemorative art installation to honour the lives of missing and murdered Indigenous Women of Canada and the United States; to acknowledge the grief and torment families of these women continue to suffer; and to raise awareness of this issue and create opportunity for broad community-based dialogue on the issue. Walking With Our Sisters is an entirely crowd-sourced project. From the artwork, to the fundraising, even to the way the exhibit tour is being booked, it is all being fueled by hundreds and thousands of people who have chosen to become involved.
In June of 2012, a general call was issued on issued on Facebook for people to create moccasin tops; the call was answered by women, men and children of all ages and races. By July 25 2013, over 1,600 vamps had been received, almost tripling the initial goal of 600. Each pair of moccasin tops are intentionally not sewn into moccasins to represent the unfinished lives of the women and girls.
In Sault Ste. Marie, Walking with our Sisters made its 5th stop. Due to the history of Algoma University, WWOS made a special call to the survivor and intergenerational communities to craft children's moccasin vamps in memory of those children and babies who perished in the residential school system, or who did not make it home from school. When the exhibition tour is over several of the children's vamps will become part of a permanent installation within the site of the old Shingwauk Residential School, in partnership with the Shingwauk Residential School Centre at Algoma University.
