My project is based on ending gun violence. I chose this because back in 2019, 368 people in New Jersey died from gun violence and it was an average of one person every day. 47% were suicides by gun deaths and 52% were homicides. I major in Psychology and I love studying or just helping people overcome their traumatic experiences. Gun violence also affects the youth where children exposed to gun violence may experience negative short- and long-term psychological effects, including anger, withdrawal, posttraumatic stress, and desensitization to violence. All of these outcomes can feed into a continuing cycle of violence. The message I am trying to give the audience is to end gun violence. No matter how many times people talk about how cruel it is or how certain events should never happen, it still happens anyway. We have to constantly keep seeing someone die every day and continue to lose someone we care so much for. Their lives get taken away by gun violence and there seems to never be anything done about it. I decided to work on a video of myself painting a message to end gun violence. It is a message to try and bring the community together to stop gun violence from happening every day. The audience also came and painted their own message as well. My inspiration first came from the previous assignment I did with the gallery response. As well as taking the trip to the art gallery to view the artists' works.
When I spoke about the gallery's response to the artwork "Thank God I'm Home," I mentioned a friend of mine who passed away due to a gunshot. It was a difficult time for me back then and it silenced most of Jersey City. This person was important to a lot of people and when he passed, he brought everyone together even those who didn't even get along were able to be in the same room. He lit up the room when he was here and still lit up the room when he wasn't. So much one person can do to the city and that is what I loved about him. But what I truly hate is when the police try to find the person who did it, and when they can't they give up. They give up while the person is walking around as a free man. There was no justice served, there was no happy ending, and there was nothing. And I hate that the system has been messed up for so long that there is just nothing you can do about it. I want to learn why people do what they do, and want to understand how a person became this way. Access to guns is a much stronger predictor of dangerous gun behavior than most mental health conditions, including depression, anxiety, posttraumatic stress disorder, and borderline personality disorder. Additionally, the trauma of gun violence can ripple out into the community, far beyond those who were shot or injured. Like other public health epidemics—for example, tobacco use and car accidents, gun violence is best addressed through public health interventions. In one of the readings "The God Bless Graffiti," I took a quote where it inspired me to paint. "For Graffiti so loved the world that it gave itself to the sole purpose of giving to earth everlasting beauty." They wanted to send a message to a larger audience on radios, televisions, and any other public service announcements.
-The Gun Violence Memorial Project inspired my own project because this memorial project was a tribute to thousands of lives lost to gun violence in America. Along in the gallery, there is a video of a documentary based on the effects of gun violence which was produced by Caryn Capotosto.
-Felix Gonzalez-Torres (artist) had made a stack of printed paper and each sheet of paper consisted of 460 individuals killed by gunshot in the U.S. during one week in May of 1989. Each individual's picture is displayed along with the name, age, and cause of death.
-Chinese artist Li Hongbo’s installation at The SCAD Museum of Art is a sea of rainbow paper that represents a pistol. Hongbo typically manipulates paper in his art, a medium that evokes the Chinese tradition of paper lamps and decorations. I got my inspiration from this as well because I wanted my painting to represent more than just words ending gun violence.
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