Jackie Traverse teams up with students to create mural [Video]

A prominent Indigenous artist has teamed up with students in The Pas to create a mural bringing attention to Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Artist Jackie Traverse has been working on the mural for the past week with students at Mary Duncan School in The Pas, Man.

The mural is a series of four pieces, each one depicting an Indigenous woman in a red dress covered in flowers. One of the women in the mural honours Kendara Ballantyne, an 18-year-old girl who was found dead in The Pas in 2019. RCMP have deemed her death a homicide.

Read More: Walk to honour Kendara Ballantyne five years after death

“Kendara, she liked canaries, so I’m going to put a little canary here looking at her,” Traverse said.

Traverse said she wanted to bring attention to MMIWG2S+ without focussing on a red handprint – a prominent symbol of the violence Indigenous women have faced in North America.

“I find it triggering …