A Work-in-Progress: Behind the Silenced Gun Violence Series

Abstract

My participation in the conference was a studio visit of sorts (my own version of Marcel Duchamp’s Boîte-en-valise— if you are familiar with that work— Atelier-en-valise. my studio in a suitcase). It is a peek into the development of a series in progress “Silenced” from 2018 onward. The series was inspired by a one-off installation I created for the 2013 Contain It! exhibit at the Dunedin Fine Art Center in Florida, Do You Know Where Your Guns Are?  featuring “Missing Gun” posters based on reports of guns stolen from private homes and vehicles.

I moved on to other projects, but the headlines kept coming. More mass shootings, more stolen guns, more incidents of domestic gun violence. “Community members shocked over rare murder-suicide.” “Domestic Shooting Leaves Woman Dead in Shreveport.” Headlines led me to statistical research in an attempt to gain insight into actual numbers of deaths and injuries, and what patterns emerge.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report one set of statistics and advocacy groups promoting or opposing gun control measures offer different sets, but few offer a comprehensive look beyond numbers. The non-profit Gun Violence Archive attempts to fill this void, collecting news and police reports in real time for free online public access. While the spreadsheets, charts, and maps are useful, it is the incident reports that provide the most detail with locations, participants, notes, and source links.

For the Silenced: Records Series, I use the Gun Violence Archive information to create temporal data portraits in a series of mixed-media drawings. The Records Series are not just data visualization but also performative drawings—experiencing the loss and suffering in a ritualistic practice.

In 2019, I returned to the headlines to dissect and interrogate how news media and government agencies tell the stories of gun-related domestic violence incidents. Silenced: Domestic Report (this is an isolated incident with no threat to the public) is a new series that pairs the data of domestic gun violence incidents with a critical eye toward the images and language used in such reports. Much of the language is either clinical, naïve and/or irresponsible, and reinforces social, racial, and economic inequalities even though domestic violence crosses all demographics. I am interested in how these reports help or hinder our understanding of the statistics and the issues, one example being domestic violence assaults involving a gun are twelve times more likely to result in death.

The Silenced series is evolving as I consider digital formats along with traditional print formats in the spirit of a “cultural jamming” artistic practice to critique and subvert the dominant media messages. I am currently experimenting with interventions utilizing mass marketing forms (posters, cards, brochures, etc) that would be situated in public spaces— bathrooms, lounges, dining areas— and would encourage social media interaction. I am also developing ideas to expand the performative rituals into collaborative projects with the community. The Silenced series intends to start conversations, show how intimately we are impacted by gun violence, and generate momentum for action.