"77 Minutes in Their Shoes," serves as an extension of my ongoing socially engaged project "Not a Drill," which surveys our exposure to gun violence in the USA through photography, performance, and installation. As an artist and mother of two school-aged children, I feel compelled to continue responding to these atrocities and lack of action through art and activism because gun violence devastates all people at personal, community, state, and national levels.
"77 Minutes in Their Shoes" includes long-term, community involvement with the victims' families and survivors devastated by the 2022 shooting in Uvalde, Texas at Robb Elementary. Since 2022, I have been fostering a relationship with Lives Robbed to witness and understand the full impact of these massacres and the role of art in helping communities process grief, establish connection, and enact change. I continue to work with this and other gun violence awareness nonprofits to research and develop the various bodies of work within this larger project.
“77 Minutes in Their Shoes,” features color photographs of the shoes the Uvalde children were wearing at the time of their death. The shoes were photographed as a straightforward document, serving as evidence of this tragic event. The still life photographs are paired with black and white photographs of the family holding the shoes. These intimate portraits reveal the families' vulnerability, resiliency, anger, and hope for a better outcome through their participation in this project.
The Uvalde families titled the project “77 Minutes in Their Shoes,” which references the horrors their children and the teachers endured at Robb Elementary. However, for me as an artist and mother of two young children, the project also encompasses the seventy-seven minutes each person within their community waited for news of loved ones. This event did not just impact the 21 lost lives but forever changed all those still living.
