A member of the Peter Ballantyne Cree Nation is being featured in a national ad campaign for an Indigenous-owned makeup company.
Zoey Roy, a Cree, Dene and Métis woman who grew up in Saskatoon, performed her spoken-word poem titled ‘Unsilent’ in Cheekbone Beauty’s advertisement video for their lipstick line.
Roy said she was excited to be a part of the process.
“I’m really excited that me and my poem are associated with this campaign called ‘Write the story,’ which is obviously a play on words, because the Cheekbone Beauty ‘Write the Story’ campaign is just so much in line with my values as an artist, as an auntie, as a woman, as an Indigenous woman.”
Throughout the video, Indigenous women are shown putting on makeup. It ends with the women joining other Indigenous women around a campfire. The audio played over top of the scenes is Roy performing her poem along with an Indigenous song and drumming.
Roy said she wrote the poem after multiple Indigenous children committed suicide in communities in Northern Saskatchewan.
“‘Unsilent’ was written at a time when there were a lot of suicides in Stanley Mission, in the La Ronge area, and I was on tour working on this show called ‘Unsilent’ with Lindsay Knight and I wanted to use my voice to speak directly to young people and let them know that we see you, we need you and we are here for you.”
Cheekbone Beauty is an online Canadian beauty company based out of Ontario. Their products are now being sold at multiple Sephora locations in Canada.
“I am really amazed and excited to see an Indigenous beauty brand being sold at Sephora,” Roy said.
A portion of the profits from the lipstick colour ‘Aki’ will be donated to Indigenous youth education initiatives.
The caption to the advertisement video explains, “Cheekbone Beauty is acting to change the negative and stereotypical representations of Indigenous Peoples in the media.”
(PHOTO: Zoey Roy said she was excited to be a part of Cheekbone Beauty’s latest ad campaign titled, ‘Write the Story.’ Photo courtesy of Zoey Roy and Cheekbone Beauty.)