July 31, 2022 KEYWORDS memorial / Washington D.C. Order Reprints No Comments

The Gun Violence Memorial Project was envisioned by Mass Design Group in partnership with artist Hank Willis Thomas and the organizations Purpose Over Pain and Everytown for Gun Safety. First presented at the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennial, the installation, now on display at Washington, D.C.’s National Building Museum (through September 25), consists of four “houses” composed of 700 glazed cubbies—a reference to the number of people killed by guns each week in the U.S. The units contain objects donated by the families of those lost to this crisis, a collection that, tragically, will continue to grow.

Adults have abandoned us; the responsibility of protecting ourselves has been passed on to us. We’re told to run in a zigzag pattern to avoid getting shot, and survivors are praised for having the ingenuity to cover themselves with their classmates’ blood. I can’t simply accept this as the way things must be. —Rebekah Boitley
A rising high school senior in Fayetteville, North Carolina,
in a New York Times op-ed