The March For Our Lives activists have a message so big, you can't miss it. And neither can Congress, we hope.
On March 26, the activists installed a gun violence art exhibit called "One Week in America" on the lawn of the U.S. Capitol.
In a Twitter thread,(opens in a new tab) Matt Deitsch, the organization's co-founder and chief strategist, explains the thinking behind each component of the installation. A sign reading "Your Complacency Kills Us" is directed to Congress, he explains, and in the exhibit's center, a "jarring"(opens in a new tab) statue depicting a student at a desk represents "a day in the life of an American student — painfully vulnerable to both trauma and violence."
The student's face is replaced with a mirror, so when viewed up close, a passerby will see themselves. A question on the student's hoodie reads "Am I next?"
The mirror is meant to establish a personal connection between the viewer and the student. "When people can see themselves in something, they can connect with it, and they need to connect with what's going on," Deitsch told Mashable in an interview.
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The exhibit also includes 735 white memorials(opens in a new tab) to represent the staggering number of people killed by gun violence in the U.S. The group took the number of gun deaths in 2017(opens in a new tab) and divided that by the number of weeks in a year to get that figure.
Like the mirror, these white memorials attempt to establish an intimate connection. Rather than depicting specific names, they use generic titles. That's on purpose. "Victims names don’t seem to connect with some Americans so we put titles everyone could connect with. Brother, daughter, friend... so people saw themselves," Deitsch says on Twitter.
With this exhibit, Deitsch hopes to encourage action. He wants Congress to "stop sitting on their hands" and start passing life-changing policies to protect vulnerable people.
"I hope they understand that this is an active choice on their part to allow this violence to continue, and it is their responsibility, as the people in power, to do the morally just thing and save lives," he explained to Mashable.
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Recently, in a week(opens in a new tab), two survivors of the Parkland shooting and the father of a child killed in the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting died by suicide.
As Deitsch points out on Twitter(opens in a new tab), New Zealand was able to announce plans to pass gun legislation just six days(opens in a new tab) after a shooting in a Christchurch mosque(opens in a new tab) that killed 50 people(opens in a new tab). Many Americans including Deitsch want American legislators to move beyond thoughts and prayers and do the same.
If you want to talk to someone or are experiencing suicidal thoughts, text the Crisis Text Line(opens in a new tab) at 741-741 or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline(opens in a new tab) at 1-800-273-8255. For international resources, this list(opens in a new tab) is a good place to start.
