Exhibits
“Lockers”- NuVu The Innovation School
Lockers is an interactive art installation that targets the problem of gun violence in schools in the 21st century. It is composed of 226 small wooden lockers. Each is dedicated to a person and has a LED backlit black and white abstract picture and stenciled information (name, age at death, school of death, and personal information like some of their interests). Lockers is honoring the memories of the lives that were unjustly taken, sending the message that gun violence in schools occurs too often and takes too many innocent lives. The goal is to reach gun rights supporters in the hope that when they see these victims as actual people who had incredible potential, and not just as another statistic, they will be inspired to push for stricter gun control laws. As viewers you can go up and open each locker and discover the story of a life that is no longer with us and have time to reflect on the effects of gun violence. Check out how this project was developed on the NuVu projects site.
NuVu Innovation School is an independent school for students in grades 8-12 who are eager to apply creative thinking to meaningful problems. Located in Cambridge, between Harvard and MIT.
One Gun Gone
The One Gun Gone project was inspired by the passing of a family member and four teenage students from gun violence. One Gun Gone is a multidisciplinary gun violence prevention public art project in which students from underserved neighborhoods in the Providence RI metro area participate in a professional art making project. In this process, students are encouraged to reflect on how they feel about gun violence and how we can keep ourselves and our communities safer from gun violence. In our most recent project called Metal Lab, students learn basic metal fabrication skills. Then each team of two students are gifted a disabled firearm that they weld into a sculpture they brainstormed that communicates about how they feel about gun violence.
Check out this New England Emmy nominated video about the latest One Gun Gone program called Metal Lab: One Gun Gone / RI PBS “Forged in Fire”.
The Steel Yard’s historic campus is a platform for professional artists, makers, and the community to practice and learn the industrial arts. The organization fosters creative and economic opportunities, by providing workspace, tools, training, and education while forging lasting links to a local tradition of craftsmanship. We believe in a world still made by hands, where individuals, neighbors, businesses, institutions, municipalities, and communities, come together to experience the creative process in order to enrich our private lives and public spaces.
The Boys & Girls Clubs of Providence provide program services in our neighborhood clubhouse facilities, schools and providence area housing developments. The program services provided include child care services, education and career preparation, character and leadership development, health and life skills education and various sports and recreational programs.
Princes 2 Kings is a group mentoring program for teenage urban males. Through unique programs and guest speakers P2K works to engage students with the real world, introducing them to people, places, organizations and careers they may not come across in their day to day lives. Princes 2 Kings is a Boys and Girls Clubs of Providence program.
Soul Box Project
Since 2017 The Soul Box Project has been raising awareness of the U.S. gunfire epidemic by counting and honoring victims in memorial exhibits, offering healing participation to those seeking solace, and providing dramatic visual support for all initiatives working for a safer, more civil society.
Thousands of hand-folded origami Soul Boxes have been made by individuals and groups around the country. Our team assembled them into 365 panels of Boxes to span the width of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., in October 2021. Over 5,000 visitors viewed the This Loss We Carry exhibit. Media reach was over 500 million.
Now, these art-filled panels of Soul Boxes have been adopted by “branches”: organizations and individuals using these effective visuals as a tool to support their efforts to reduce gunfire deaths and injuries. Contact a branch near you to get involved, make Boxes, or borrow the panels for your event.