The Gun Violence Memorial Project
The Gun Violence Memorial Project was created to honor the thousands of lives cut short each year by gun violence in the United States. Four houses constructed of 700 clear glass bricks each, representing the average number of lives lost in a single week, are filled with remembrance objects — photographs, heirlooms, toys, or clothing — donated by families who have lost loved ones. Inside, visitors hear recorded stories and see portraits that bring forward the humanity behind the numbers.
Passing through the houses, the scale of the national crisis becomes immediate and intimate. Every object, every brick, and every story becomes part of a collective archive of grief, love, and memory. As families continue to contribute new objects and memories, the installations grow, turning the houses into living records of loss, resilience, and commemoration.
First presented at the Chicago Architecture Biennial, the project has since traveled to the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., to Boston's Institute of Contemporary Art, and most recently to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit.
The future vision for the project is to gather enough objects and stories for the memorial to take root as a permanent national site—prominent, enduring, and open to the broader public as a place of collective remembrance and resolve.
Project Info
Year: 2019 - Present
Location: Chicago, Washington, D.C., Boston, Detroit
Size: 72 sq. ft. per house
Typology: Memorial
Collaborators Hank Willis Thomas, MASS Design Group, Songha & Company, Purpose Over Pain, Everytown for Gun Safety, Louis D. Brown Peace Institute, Change the Ref, Newtown Action Alliance, Haroula Rose, Caryn Capotosto, StoryCorps, Sam Stubblefield, Ravenswood Studio, The Chicago Architecture Biennial, The National Building Museum, The Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Mayor's Office of Arts and Culture, Boston