According to the nonprofit research group, Gun Violence Archive, almost 40,000 Americans are killed by gun violence each year, a tragedy exacerbated by recent economic issues related to Covid-19. Staged within the National Building Museum in Washington, DC, The Gun Violence Memorial Project was conceived by American conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas and Mass Design Group in partnership with gun violence prevention organisations Purpose Over Pain and Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund.
Free to the public, the poignant installation comprises four white houses, each constructed with 700 transparent glass bricks, a tribute to each person killed by guns each week in the US. The houses are already home to hundreds of personal artefacts, including photographs, baby shoes, graduation tassels and jewellery.
Over time, cavities will be filled with deeply personal objects of remembrance donated by the families of victims. Using the design as a prototype, the ambition for the project is a permanent national memorial that pays tribute the lives of those killed by guns.
RELATED STORY
‘My family felt the effects of gun violence first hand when my cousin was murdered during a robbery in 2000,’ says Thomas, who is also artistic director of Songha & Company, a conceptual public art practice named after the artist's cousin, Songha Thomas Willis. ‘My life, and by extension my artistic practice, has been influenced ever since.’
The exhibition will also display excerpts from Comes the Light, a forthcoming documentary film exploring the effects of gun violence created by Haroula Rose and Caryn Capotosto.
The Gun Violence Memorial Project will be on view physically and online until September 2022 and is presented in conjunction with ‘Justice is Beauty: The Work of Mass Design Group’, a timely new show surveying the work of the socially conscious nonprofit architecture firm.
‘As the recent tragic shootings in Colorado and Georgia sadly underscore, gun violence isn’t an abstract concept, but an epidemic that strikes every American community,’ said Brent D Glass, interim executive director of the National Building Museum.
INFORMATION
The Gun Violence Memorial Project, until September 2022 at the National Building Museum, Washington, DC. nbm.org
ADDRESS
401 F Street NW
Washington, DC 20001
-
A first look inside the new Oxford Street Ikea. Spoiler: blue bags and meatballs are includedThe new Oxford Street Ikea opens tomorrow (1 May), giving Londoners access to the Swedish furniture brand right in the heart of the city
-
For the 2025 Eurovision theme art, Swiss design principles get a glow-upLondon-based branding agency NOT Wieden+Kennedy marries graphic design history and exuberance in its theme art for this year's song contest
-
Ten low-pro sneakers that capture footwear’s new streamlined moodSuper-flat soles, narrowed silhouettes: the low-profile sneaker is this season’s defining footwear style. Here, the Wallpaper* style team selects its favourites
-
Ai Weiwei’s new public installation is coming soon to Four Freedoms State Park‘Camouflage’ by Ai Weiwei will launch the inaugural Art X Freedom project in September 2025, a new programme to investigate social justice and freedom
-
Leonard Baby's paintings reflect on his fundamentalist upbringing, a decade after he left the churchThe American artist considers depression and the suppressed queerness of his childhood in a series of intensely personal paintings, on show at Half Gallery, New York
-
Desert X 2025 review: a new American dream grows in the Coachella ValleyWill Jennings reports from the epic California art festival. Here are the highlights
-
In ‘The Last Showgirl’, nostalgia is a drug like any otherGia Coppola takes us to Las Vegas after the party has ended in new film starring Pamela Anderson, The Last Showgirl
-
‘American Photography’: centuries-spanning show reveals timely truthsAt the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, Europe’s first major survey of American photography reveals the contradictions and complexities that have long defined this world superpower
-
Sundance Film Festival 2025: The films we can't wait to watchSundance Film Festival, which runs 23 January - 2 February, has long been considered a hub of cinematic innovation. These are the ones to watch from this year’s premieres
-
What is RedNote? Inside the social media app drawing American users ahead of the US TikTok banDownloads of the Chinese-owned platform have spiked as US users look for an alternative to TikTok, which faces a ban on national security grounds. What is Rednote, and what are the implications of its ascent?
-
Architecture and the new world: The Brutalist reframes the American dreamBrady Corbet’s third feature film, The Brutalist, demonstrates how violence is a building block for ideology
