The first thing you notice is that the mannequins aren’t sexy.
One wears a faded hoodie. Another is dressed in nursing scrubs, another in pajamas. A pair of sweats so average they could have been bought at Walmart for $19.99.
These are the outfits people were wearing when they were sexually assaulted.
The “What Were You Wearing?” exhibit organized by Genesis House is as blunt as its name, a quiet rebuttal to one of the oldest and ugliest myths in human history: that sexual assault can be explained by a victim’s clothing.
“No one is asking for it,” says Ang Braun, Executive Director at Genesis House. “That’s the reality. And sometimes people need to see it to believe it.”
The exhibit is a traveling display, assembled from donated mannequins (thanks to Gardenland Co-op’s timely store renovation) that now stand like silent witnesses in police stations, art galleries, and community halls across the Pembina Valley. Their purpose is to confront victim-blaming.
Braun says the idea came after Genesis House partnered with the Aurora Foundation to pilot a sexual assault intervention program. “We hear about sexual assault here all the time on our crisis line, from women who come in. But we’re not specifically funded for that work. This gave us a chance to connect the dots between hospitals, police, community, RCMP, First Nations police, and then bring in the community.”
The exhibit became more than symbolic. Survivors began asking to have their own clothing, or lookalikes, placed on the mannequins. “It feels like you’re taking some of your power back,” Braun says. “Like saying: ‘Look. I was wearing my work uniform.’ Or, ‘I was wearing my hockey jersey.’”
Standing among the mannequins feels almost like walking through a crime scene that is at once utterly ordinary and unbearably specific.
Sometimes, people stop to talk. Sometimes they cry. Sometimes, Braun says, it triggers memories of assaults decades old. “Something that happened 20 years ago, and now they’re seeing this and thinking, ‘Yeah…’ It validates people to see that there’s nothing they could have done to deserve it.”
The mannequins have been to the Winkler Art Gallery, the Morden Police Station, and most recently 500 Stephen Street. Wherever they go, Genesis House staff stays nearby, just in case the display stirs up more than conversation. “We know it can be triggering,” Braun says. “We want to make sure we’re there to provide support.”
Behind the scenes, the project also helped tighten the network of care in the region including nurse examiners at Boundary Trails, partnerships with Winnipeg programs like the Health Sciences Centre and Clinic Hummingbird so that victims have options. Sometimes the mannequins open the door to those conversations.
Braun shrugs off the idea that the display is provocative. It is, in fact, aggressively normal. Which is the point.
