Acadia art project on missing and murdered aboriginal women vandalized

An art project representing missing and murdered aboriginal women at Acadia University in Nova Scotia has been vandalized, leaving the gallery curator in shock and wondering why it was destroyed.

Initially, around 10 red dresses hung from trees outside of the Wolfville university's Art Gallery in September, in what the artist who created it called a visual reminder of the staggering number of aboriginal women who are no longer with us.

Now there are just two.

"Within a few days of the exhibition being up, half of the dresses we put up were either damaged or they were completely stolen all together," said Laurie Dalton, the gallery curator and director. 

Since then, all of the dresses have been stolen, or "damaged and kind of just discarded."

A community member did donate three new dresses, but only two are left of those. 

More questions than answers

"I think there's been more, I would say, questions than answers," Dalton said. 

She's shocked and doesn't know if it was just someone late at night joking around or something else. 

"Is it someone that is really, you know, motivated by what the exhibition represents?" she asked.

Winnipeg-based Métis artist Jamie Black is behind the REDress project, pronounced "red dress" and/or "redress."

"The project seeks to collect 600 red dresses by community donation that will later be installed in public spaces throughout Winnipeg and across Canada," according to Black's project website.

"Through the installation I hope to draw attention to the gendered and racialized nature of violent crimes against aboriginal women and to evoke a presence through the marking of absence."

Dresses woven into hangers

There's an inside exhibition at Acadia University and an outdoor one outside the gallery. The outdoor portion has labels and signs on the trees explaining what the project is about. 

"It's been quite difficult for us to kind of process what these dresses that already represent, you know, a disembodied lost woman have now themselves been taken," said Dalton.

Those dresses are woven into the hangers with fishing line, and the hangers are attached to the trees with fishing line, so they can't easily be taken off, Dalton said. The trees were even damaged in the process. 

"The force really took me aback," said Dalton.

Acadia was the worst

Dalton said Black came to Acadia University to give an artist talk recently and explained that when a public installation is involved, there's always the risk that something will happen to it.

"Some of it was expected, but when I asked Jamie she actually suggested to me that Acadia was the worst in terms of how quickly the damage happened," Dalton said.

One of Dalton's teaching assistants at the gallery wrote a piece about the vandalism in the student paper, but there hadn't been too much discussion outside of classes. 

After Black's talk, talk took off — and one English professor, Jon Saklofske, wrote a piece on social media about what happened. 

Dalton said her students also organized a student-led public discussion on what happened. 

"We're hoping on Nov. 13 that we can have a discussion," she said. "What's leading to this? And why are people, why are people doing this?" 

Dalton is also encouraging people to come to the gallery to see the show and the dresses and remnants of fishing line hanging in the trees. 

The exhibition runs until Nov. 29.