In the weeks leading up to May 5, a significant number of red dresses were donated by the campus community for installations across campus buildings. (UNIVERSITY OF WINDSOR)
By John-Paul Bonadonna
The University of Windsor community gathered on May 5 to mark Red Dress Day — the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women, Girls and 2SLGBTQI+ people (MMIWG2S+).
This year’s observance brought students, faculty, staff and community members together in a shared act of remembrance and commitment to justice.
In the weeks leading up to May 5, the campus community answered a call to action with an outpouring of support. A significant number of red dresses were donated, allowing installations to expand across campus buildings — including the downtown corridor — creating a powerful and highly visible tribute.
Inspired by Métis artist Jaime Black, the red dress installations served as a striking visual reminder of absence and loss. Each dress symbolized a life taken too soon and the enduring grief carried by loved ones, while also calling attention to the need for continued awareness and action.
Stacey Marion, Institutional Events Hub strategic coordinator assisted with the collection of the red dresses and coordinating the volunteers who installed them across campus.
“I was moved by the dresses as symbols of interrupted lives, and by the way our campus community came together in shared presence,” she says.
“I carried an awareness of my place as a settler and a responsibility to witness with compassion.”
Members of the campus community also wore red in solidarity, contributing to a shared and visible expression of remembrance. In many Indigenous cultures, red holds deep spiritual significance and is believed to be the only colour spirits can see — a symbolic call to bring home those who have been lost.
At the heart of the day was a Feast Ceremony held in the University of Windsor’s Freed-Orman Commons, offering space for reflection, learning and collective acknowledgement of the lives lost and the ongoing impact on families and communities.
“Moments like these do not resolve what has been lost, but they create space for remembrance, for learning and for a more accountable way of moving forward together,” said Marion.
Red Dress Day at the University of Windsor provided the campus community a meaningful opportunity to come together, reflect and reaffirm a collective responsibility to support justice, healing and change.