One Gun Gone is a multidisciplinary gun violence prevention public art project in which students from underserved neighborhoods in Providence RI participate in a professional art making and marketing exercise that provides immersive experiences at an art college, an advertising agency, a community youth arts center and positive interactions with local law enforcement agencies. The One Gun Gone project was inspired by the passing of four of my teenage students from gun violence over the past fifteen years. Our goal has been to take one gun off the street, make artwork from it and then sell that artwork to raise money to buy more guns off the streets with a police sanctioned gun buy back. By breaking the negative economy of one potential street gun (which can be resold illegally countless times) we will create a positive art making economy that will raise more money than if we had resold the original (now decommissioned) firearm itself. To start I legally purchased a handgun and hired an artist to make a mold of the weapon (which my students never saw or touched). From that mold we have made four different types of sculpture that each speak to gun violence in our community in different ways.
The Cast Glass Gun Sculpture was the first project we made from the One Gun Gone mold. We chose the medium of glass because its transparency made us think of ghosts. If it drops the brittle glass can shatter which made us think of the fragility of life. A real gun often makes one feel invincible but its power is often an illusion that we hope is illustrated here. We have created ten cast glass gun sculptures.
The Crayon Gun Sculpture
. When One Gun Gone students saw the Crayon Gun for the first time it made many of them reflect on their younger siblings, cousins and our own children. While any child is too young to learn about gun violence, some children learn far too young. By using children's crayons as the medium in the One Gun Gone mold we reflect on how we teach our young people about violence consciously and unconsciously.
Does this Pencil Gun Sculpture project a positive or negative message? Is it saying teaching literacy is stronger than the power of a gun, or is it saying we teach our young people violence at an early age?
The Candle Gun Sculpture was inspired by the sidewalk shrines that appear when someone has been killed on the street due to gun violence. Amid the stuffed animals and empty bottles of liquor are votive candles lit to mourn the passing of someone loved. We decided we wanted to create a sculpture that spoke to why someone was being mourned to begin with. So we created the Candle Gun Sculpture.
One Gun Gone show at Trade Pop Up Gallery Video by OGG student Nick Freire
