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In the Sault? Sexual Assault: The Roadshow – Northern Tour comes to Sault Ste. Marie

 

Sexual Assault: The Roadshow is a traveling art gallery in a 20’x8’ shipping container that invites community participation and activation. It has been travelling on a flatbed truck to 18 cities and areas in Ontario since 2016. Sault Ste. Marie will be the 19th stop on the tour. At each stop, local artists work with participants to create art that talks back to sexual violence – in all of its forms. Opening at 5 PM on August 28th, the container will exhibit the work of the past three years, and on September 17th, an exhibition of the locally created work will be presented. We welcome the Sault Ste. Marie community to visit the container (daily schedule details below) from August 28th to September 22nd at the Station Mall parking lot along Elgin. Sexual assault and other violence against Indigenous women, men, two-spirit individuals and youth is a growing and an underreported problem in communities across Turtle Island. These crimes are often evidence of the lasting effects of colonialism, and occur at exceptionally high rates.

 

Local Ojibwe artist Adora-Lee Nawagesic (Kiashke Zaaging First Nation in the Robinson Superior Treaty area) joins The Roadshow at this stop of the tour. She will lead a group of local community members through The Beaded Path, a series of four workshops where participants will assemble and bead moccasins using traditional florals that ‘talk back’ to the historical and colonial violence against Indigenous women, and create a new empowering narrative through these guided sessions. Adora-Lee Nawagesic is currently based in Baawating (Sault Ste. Marie), Ontario. She has been practicing beadwork for over a decade, focusing on moccasins, earrings, and medallions. This work is driven by a passion for the use and revitalization of traditional Ojibwe floral designs and an interest in where they fit in terms of the greater Anishinaabe context.

From Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (#mmiw) to #metoo, the awareness and discussion about sexual violence has increased, but it is still largely stigmatized. Conversations about these traumas are held back by fear and denial. Sexual Assault: The Roadshow is designed to address sexual assault and other violence against Indigenous women, men, two-spirit individuals, and youth with the power each community and the dialogues created through art making. While The Roadshow recognizes that the path to healing is long and the intergenerational effects of sexual violence run deep, it would also like to acknowledge the hope and indomitable strength of Indigenous peoples and their work toward meaningful change. 

Public Viewing Hours as follows (weather permitting):

Mondays –  10am-1pm

Tuesdays, 5-7pm

Wednesdays, 10am-1pm

Thursdays, 5-7pm

Fridays, 10am-1pm

Saturdays, 11am-2pm

Sundays, Closed

 

With the exception of the closed-workshop dates which will occur on:

 

September 8, 1:30 to 4:30pm

September 9, 1:30 to 4:30pm

September 15, 1:30 to 4:30pm

September 16, 1:30 to 4:30pm

 

Please drop by during public viewing hours and, if you choose, engage in a small art exercise of your own!

 

Sexual Assault: The Roadshow is funded by the Ontario Arts Council and sponsored by Vtape. The Roadshow’s Northern Tour is led by artistic director, Denise Bolduc, and project founder/sexual assault activist, Jane Doe. While in Sault Ste. Marie, The Roadshow is collaborating with the Indigenous Women’s Anti-Violence Task Force.

 

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