Description
Michelle enjoys gazing at this empowering gesture that suggests self-care is part of social justice for WOC.
Transcript
So we’re almost coming around full circle here because we started at the grunt gallery and wove our way around to a few locations. And now we’re at 11th and Main where one of the most moving images, it’s a very simple mural, but the defiance in the woman’s face and the gold earrings, flashed me back to my sister because she looked a lot like this image and the image went up in this location very shortly after my sister died. And so when I see this, I would walk by here and almost like have a startled intake because it’s almost like she was there somehow communicating to me through the mural.
And now since that time, there has been a beautiful green space created around this strong woman of colour who is also relaxing, which I think is lovely. She’s not just so caught up in the struggle that she’s forgetting about her own self care. And so those two messages come to me when I see this. And now that this little green space is here, I like to come and sit here and maybe think a bit more, reflect a bit more. I used to just pass by it because the green space wasn’t here. But now that the green space is here, I’m now thinking, geez, I got to come back to this location. My feelings about the sadness of the loss are a little bit different now. So I think I can just come here and look more at the mural and the image and think more generally about strong Brown women and self care.
