Red River snow sculptures honour murdered, missing Indigenous women and girls

If you're out skating the river trail in Winnipeg this weekend you maynoticesnowy figures stretched out across the ice.

Winnipeg Mtis artist Jaime Black sculpted the figures as a way to commemorate the lives ofmissing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG).

"It's a comment on the fact that Indigenous women are facing high rates of violence in Winnipeg often we're finding women in the river," Black told CBCUp to Speedhost IsmailaAlfa on Friday.

"It's just a way for us to kind of remember them and to honour them and say, 'I hope we get together as a community and talk about ways that we can create a safer space for indigenous women and girls.'"

Black said she has been sitting on the idea for about three years and the warm conditions Thursday were enough to draw her to outside and build.

The six or so live-size figures were sculpted so as to make them appear lying down atop the frozen river surface.They can be found about 100 metres past where the trail ends on the Red River not far from St. Boniface Hospital.

She drew inspiration from another one of her own outdoor community art displays, the REDressProject, which slung red dresses from trees in cities across Canada in honour of MMIWG.

It was an individual effort this time butBlack said she hopes to invite others out to help co-create 40 or more sculpturesin the future.