The Gun Violence Memorial ProjectNational Building Museum
April 9, 2021March 7, 2023

A traveling Installation commissioned by the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial and made in collaboration with MASS Design Group, and in partnership with Purpose Over Pain and Everytown For Gun Safety. The Gun Violence Memorial Project seeks to create a permanent, national memorial that honors the lives and narratives of victims of gun violence. Gun violence is a national epidemic that touches every community in America. The sheer scale of this epidemic often reduces victims of gun violence to statistics and ideas of change to empty promises. The Gun Violence Memorial Project launched at the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial. The exhibition features four houses built of 700 glass bricks, each house representing the average number of lives taken due to gun violence each week in America. Families who have lost a loved one due to gun violence contributed remembrance objects at in-person collection events. The remembrance objects are placed within a glass brick, displaying the name, year of birth, and year of death of the honored person. The memorial seeks to preserve individual memories and communicate the magnitude of the issue in a built space, and hopes to foster a national healing process that begins with a recognition of the collective loss and its impact on society. These installations are the first steps to recognizing the great need for a national, permanent memorial to gun violence victims, launched first in Chicago at the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial and currently on view in Washington, D.C.

The Gun Violence Memorial Project
The Gun Violence Memorial Project
The Gun Violence Memorial Project
The Gun Violence Memorial Project