POSTPONED – Susan Perkins’ Artist Talk

Public viewing at City Gallery is suspended through March 31, and the events originally scheduled for March 20 (opening reception) and march 28 (artist’s talk) will not proceed this month. Please stay tuned for more information.

Program presenters for the Artist’s Talk are:
Susan Perkins – Visual Vigil Artist
Dr. Annie Andrews – MUSC Pediatrician and co-lead of Be SMART for Kids
Tisa Whack – Co-founder of We Are Their Voices and Community Outreach Lead at Mom Demand Action
Tenelle Jones – LMFT, LAC

Free for all to attend!

“Visual Vigil offers a visual language to honor the loss of individuals, communities involved, and the effects of mass violence. The art is the backdrop for a conversation around the societal and psychological effects of mass violence. Visual Vigil invites us to ponder the underlying anxiety and fear that is seeping into our collective psyche due to increased frequency of mass violence. We live in a culture that has regular drills and rehearsals for the presence of gun violence. We all know what “lockdown” means. We are training a whole generation to prepare for an attack. One contemplates the lasting generational effects of living in our current climate of gun violence.

Data from the Gun Violence Archives reveal, on average, there is a mass shooting nine out of ten days. Mass shootings have occurred in almost all fifty states, and in cities of all sizes. Gun violence is no longer just an urban issue—it is now a suburban, small town, and rural issue as well.  Mass violence is in lower economic, middle class, and wealthy communities. Furthermore, it is no longer contained within someone else’s neighborhood; it is in all our neighborhoods. It commonly occurs in offices, schools, restaurants, stores, theaters, places of worship, government properties, healthcare facilities, concerts and open spaces. In short, mass violence is everywhere.

To live confidently in an open society, we need to be able to rely on the ability to interact with one another without fear, and to have a basic sense of trust and safety. Many adults are changing their behaviors due to fear of mass shootings, like knowing the location of exits, subtle uneasiness in a movie theater, having a plan or avoiding certain places and events.

I started the Visual Vigil Project for us to stay awake, to prompt discussions between reformers, activists, experts, educators, and survivors on the issues surrounding gun violence in our communities —conversations for change.”

Susan Perkins