10/24/2021
Each box a victim, each box a family heartbroken.
Last weekend was the buildup and display of in the where victims of gun violence over the last three years, both souls lost and survivors, were represented and honored with hand-built origami boxes by the people that love them. It was a place of mourning and healing.
The boxes were layered together to create a memorial wall that surrounded visitors as they walked through the gallery. When completed, however, their collective mass also shut out city sounds and the fall breeze that was in our backdrop all day. Every few minutes it felt like I was about to run into someone just out of my peripheral, and I’d look up to see rows of boxes peppered with names, photos, adornments, and messages. It was like being in a room full of people that no longer moved, no longer spoke.
The shots taken by the media team were spread far and wide for outlets like and , and everyone did a phenomenal job bringing light to the scale and human cost of gun violence. I hope it moves the needle, I hope it makes someone reconsider.
Because the sound a grieving parent makes is like the goddamn apocalypse, but worse. It’s the sound of a world irreparably sundering. Don’t do that to them.
