Photo of red dresses hung on crosses along B.C. roadside wins world photo award
Global News
Amber Bracken, a freelance photojournalist who is based in Edmonton, captured the photo of red dresses hung on crosses along a roadside to commemorate the children who died.
Warning: This story deals with disturbing subject matter that may upset and trigger some readers. Discretion is advised.
A Canadian photographer has won this year’s World Press Photo Award for a powerful residential school image.
Amber Bracken, a freelance photojournalist who is based in Edmonton, captured the photo of red dresses hung on crosses along a roadside to commemorate the children who died at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.
The story broke last May when the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc Nation in Kamloops said a section of land was searched at the former school with ground-penetrating radar and what were believed to be the remains of up to 215 children were found.
“This winner represents the awakening of a shameful history that is finally being addressed in Canada,” the jury said in a statement.
“It is a perfect image which captures a rare light, and is at once haunting, arresting, and symbolic. The sensory image offers a quiet moment of reckoning with the global legacy of colonization and exploitation, while amplifying the voices of First Nations communities who are demanding justice. The single image requires an active eye, and encourages us to hold governments, social institutions, and ourselves accountable.
“The jury awarded this image the World Press Photo of the Year because it summarizes a global history of colonial oppression that must be addressed in order to tackle the challenges of the future.”
About 7,000 square metres of land, or just under two acres of the former school site, were covered from May 21 to 24 by ground-penetrating radar, or GPR, around the apple orchard at the Secwépemc Museum and Heritage Park.
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