The Huron County Museum is very pleased to host The Ribbon Skirt Project: Creating & Gifting a Cultural Connection, a collection of more than 215 ribbon skirts which will be on display throughout the Museum from March 12-April 10, 2022.
The Ribbon Skirt Project was started by Miss Kettle and Stony Point Jr., Jaylynn Wolfe, in July 2021. Knowing that owning a ribbon skirt was important, but difficult for many, Jaylynn, along with her mother, set out to make hundreds of ribbon skirt kits and invited volunteer sewers to help. The goal of the project was to create 215 skirts to represent the first number of unmarked graves identified in British Columbia at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. They quickly exceeded that goal, with more than 215 Ribbon Skirts being gifted to the project from all over North America. Each skirt will be gifted to a youth on Jaylynn’s First Nation of Kettle and Stony Point.
“The hope of the project is that a child will take hold of their ribbon skirt so close to their heart that their connection to their culture will start their journey,” said Jaylynn. “This project gives an opportunity for this cultural connection to happen and allows for all youth to participate.”
Before the Ribbon Skirts journey to the youth of Kettle and Stony Point First Nation, they will be on display at the Huron County Museum where the public is invited to see this beautiful collection of work. The skirts will be displayed throughout the Museum in groupings that showcase the Seven Grandfather Teachings, the Clans of Kettle and Stony Point, Water is Life, Spirit Horses, The Creation Story, The Three Sisters, The Medicine Wheel, and Floral imagery, as well as a display to bring awareness to the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.
The exhibit is open to the public during regular Museum hours of operation. The public is also invited to meet Jaylynn, who will be available to answer questions about the Ribbon Skirt Project. She will be onsite at the Museum on Saturday, March 12, Sunday, March 20 and 27, and Sunday, April 3 and 10 from 1-4 p.m.
To celebrate the project, we will also be hosting a screening of the Indigenous film, Beans, on March 27. The film explores the 1990 Oka Crisis at Kanesatake, through the eyes of Tekehentahkhwa (nicknamed “Beans”), a young Mohawk girl whose perspective on life is radically changed by these events.