This piece was was created by Yolonda Skelton.

She is a textiles artest

and fashion designer from the Gitxsan Nation and the House of Hax-be-
gwoo-txw of the Fireweed Clan. She created this piece after she found out
about the 215 missing children in Kamloops had been found. It was made
in commemoration for each one of the missing childern and featers 215
hand cut out felts of moccasins spread trew out the design. She says it was
a divinely gilded project as she already had the piece of orange and then
decided on a size for the moccasins and then exactly 215 fit. She says it
was created to give a voice to each and every child that was previously
silenced. She used to teach a BC first peoples class and it was her
passion project that was the example for the class. This specific piece of
Yolondas work has made it around the world including shows in the vatican
and italy in efforts to raise awareness to the tragedies of the residencial
schools and truth and reconciliation. She choose Moccasins because she
wanted to try and put us in the shoes if the kids that were taken from there
home, some as young as 5, and having to leave everything cultural behind,
like there moccasins. I talked to Yolonda for quite a while about the tramas
that her and her family have endured over generations and she says that
on of the biggest impacts we can make to try and help it to do exactly this,
get out there be properly educated and then be an educator and spread
knowledge on the subject.

Brody S. Sept 29 Block 1-1