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A P R I L 2021 ME S S E NG E R
C O M M U N I T Y S P O T L I G H T
My name is Jayce Desjarlais, I am a Métis Woman from Gift Lake Metis Settlement. Currently, I have been studying fine arts and establishing my identity through my practice. I find issues that have to do with Indigenous Presences, Voices and Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women to be the most important in my life and wish to bring these into my works. The Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women epidemic is an ongoing problem that is not brought into mainstream conversations and have a very small, limited audience to understand the issue. The project “Please Don’t Call Me Pocahontas” is a piece where I take ownership of my own narrative as an Indigenous person and taking a stance to damaging stereotypes against Indigenous Women. The term “Pocahontas” is a derogatory term for Indigenous women as it paints us with the same washed down narrative of Pocahontas. She is a romanticized, fetishized historical figure who has a tragic narrative, but is used as a leverage for damaging stereotypes and depictions of Indigenous women and people. People have reclaimed her narrative so that their inaccurate perceptions of Indigenous people is validated, which only causes harm to the Indigenous people. I was called Pocahontas at one point in my life, being the only Indigenous student in my junior high. This term not only harms me as an Indigenous woman and take away my value, but it sets limitations on my presence and my will to express. And I know that I am not the only woman to have garnered these negative impacts from this term, it also ties in with the collective, societal depictions of Indigenous women. And Indigenous Women are at risk to being harmed or killed at the hands of the fetishized, stereotypical depictions and perceptions of Indigenous people due to the lack of knowledge the public has. I had created my own red dress to commemorate the Red Dress Movement, as well as bringing more focus to this issue within a space that is diverse with Indigenous and Non- Indigenous presences. This project was to ease in both groups into the conversation while maintaining an integrity that does not overwhelm the audiences, as I know this is a heavy topic. I created this dress out of red satin and organza, hand painting Cree words, Syllabics, and the names of Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women. The dress layers still have space to continue adding names, as this is an ongoing project that reflects the ongoing crisis against Indigenous Women. As a Cree woman, I wanted to reflect my identity through the Cree Language and highlight the words such as “Mother”, “Daughter”, “Grandmother”, and “Cousin”, and will continue to add more words throughout this journey. The dress also holds a belt made of the Métis sash holding an Inukshuk, a miniature Métis sash, with a brooch that has bows and arrows to acknowledge the First Nation, Métis and Inuit people affected by the
Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women statistic. This is such a heavy, and delicate issue, so I honour the families personally affected by this and those who have lost someone dear. These lives were cut short, and these women meant something to someone. They have tragically left us but will leave behind a legacy for those they have impacted. As a Métis woman, I am proud of what my people have established thus far. I want to promote Indigenous Success as much as Indigenous tragedies are taught. I want my generation and the generation after me to raise their voices on these issues and to never stop fighting to achieving justice for themselves and for a collective of Indigenous people who cannot fight on their own. We are the backbone to success and a better society. We are the generation that pick-up traditions that we were forced to drop before colonial impacts. We are the generation that takes ownership of our narrative, the depiction of Indigenous people and foremost, our voices.
O u r L a n d . O u r C u l t u r e . O u r F u t u r e .
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