Amy Paul says her sister’s disappearance in December has been devastating for their entire community.
Erin Brooks was last seen Dec. 27 in the Wolastoqey community of Sitansisk, St. Mary’s First Nation, near Fredericton wearing blue jeans, a black jacket and black boots.
“You watch the news and you feel for the families but you think like that can’t happen here,” said Paul.
“But it does and it happens every day, but you don’t realize it until it happens so close to home or in your family.”
Paul said their mother tries their best to hold it all together but calls her up to just cry sometimes. Paul said she’s focused all of her energy on trying to locate her sister, but once she’s found she’ll process her emotions.
“You don’t realize the toll that it takes on the family but I think that it needs to be brought to light,” she said.
Paul said she hopes an upcoming art exhibit in her community can do just that for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG).
Erin Brooks, left, with her older sister Amy Paul in 2016. Brooks was last seen at the Smoke Shop in St. Mary’s First Nation Dec. 27, 2021. (Submitted by Amy Paul)
The exhibit’s curator, Mason Paul, another Sitansisk community member, says “I really wanted to educate people on this.”
Mason Paul is a professional photographer and has three photo series in the exhibit that runs Friday and Saturday. The first is called Rooted and will feature Indigenous women in regalia to show their strength in culture. Another will feature women in red handprints a prominent MMIWG symbol. The third will be the largest and will feature Indigenous women on the land.
Photographer Mason Paul curated an art exhibit to raise awareness of murdered and missing Indigenous women and girls. (submitted by Mason Paul )
Mason Paul said his prints will be sold at a silent auction with 50 per cent of the proceeds going to the Gignoo Transition House, a local organization to help vulnerable Indigenous women. Sixty-four per cent of Indigenous women in Atlantic Canada reported experiencing physical or sexual assault since the age of 15, according to a Statistics Canada report from April.
Mi’kmaw artist Brandy Googoo will display a beaded heart artwork in the exhibit. She said she spent 120 hours working on the piece because she wanted to raise awareness of the violence women face.
“I’ve seen a lot; I’ve lived through a lot and I’ve helped my friends and family through a lot of experiences,” said Googoo.
Googoo said her father was a Sixities Scoop survivor and they grew up off reserve. Being a brown-skinned family led them to face racism and physical violence, she said, and the artwork is a reflection of that pain.
The heart in the piece represents Indigenous women as the heartbeat of their nations, the purple eye represents domestic violence and the red handprint symbolizes the continued silencing of Indigenous women.
“We can take our traumas and turn our traumas into beautiful artwork,” said Googoo.
Mason Paul has a photo series in the exhibit of Indigenous women in regalia to showcase their strength. (submitted by Mason Paul. )
Fredericton Police said in an emailed statement that they continue to investigate the disappearance of Erin Brooks.
“We have issued several requests for public assistance and continue to follow up on all tips received from the public,” the statement said.
Anyone with information can contact Fredericton Police at 460-2300 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477. There is a $65,000 reward for information leading to the discovery of Erin Brooks’s location.
LONDON (AP) — With a few daubs of a paintbrush, the Brontë sisters have got their dots back.
More than eight decades after it was installed, a memorial to the three 19th-century sibling novelists in London’s Westminster Abbey was amended Thursday to restore the diaereses – the two dots over the e in their surname.
The dots — which indicate that the name is pronounced “brontay” rather than “bront” — were omitted when the stone tablet commemorating Charlotte, Emily and Anne was erected in the abbey’s Poets’ Corner in October 1939, just after the outbreak of World War II.
They were restored after Brontë historian Sharon Wright, editor of the Brontë Society Gazette, raised the issue with Dean of Westminster David Hoyle. The abbey asked its stonemason to tap in the dots and its conservator to paint them.
“There’s no paper record for anyone complaining about this or mentioning this, so I just wanted to put it right, really,” Wright said. “These three Yorkshire women deserve their place here, but they also deserve to have their name spelled correctly.”
It’s believed the writers’ Irish father Patrick changed the spelling of his surname from Brunty or Prunty when he went to university in England.
Raised on the wild Yorkshire moors, all three sisters died before they were 40, leaving enduring novels including Charlotte’s “Jane Eyre,” Emily’s “Wuthering Heights” and Anne’s “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.”
Rebecca Yorke, director of the Brontë Society, welcomed the restoration.
“As the Brontës and their work are loved and respected all over the world, it’s entirely appropriate that their name is spelled correctly on their memorial,” she said.
