‘There are many layers to this’

Exhibit at MSU Broad marks second anniversary of 2023 shooting

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Quiet spaces for meditation and healing, sobering visual reminders of the scope and impact of gun violence in America and calls to action are all part of a new exhibit at Michigan State University’s Broad Art Museum, “Art in the Aftermath: Healing Gun Violence Through Artivism.”

But for co-curators Scott Boehm and Maya Manuel, the exhibit has a deeper meaning.

Two years ago, the Broad became a refuge for a group of traumatized students and their professor, Marco Díaz-Muñoz, minutes after the Feb. 13, 2023, shooting at next-door Berkey Hall that left three students dead and five injured. For one chaotic night, the steel walls of the Broad flashed with the lights of some 30 emergency vehicles.

“This exhibit is a way to reclaim the space from being a site of evacuation after a mass shooting to a regenerative, restoring, healing space,” Boehm said. “There are many layers to this.”

Boehm is an assistant professor of 20th- and 21st-century Spanish culture, and Manuel is a 22-year-old recent MSU grad.

“Our generation believes it’s not ‘if’ we’re going to be impacted by gun violence, but ‘when,’” Manuel said. “Creating this space for people to express themselves in this light is so beautiful and serene and special to me, and to our students and faculty.”

Perhaps the most famous graphic symbol for opponents of gun violence, the knotted gun, has appeared in many forms and guises around the nation.

A rainbow-colored version designed by Beatles drummer Ringo Starr is part of the Broad exhibit. The gun is inscribed with the word “IMAGINE,” a nod to Starr’s murdered bandmate, John Lennon.

(Adding a touch of dry humor, Boehm said the artifact also represents “an opportunity to educate the youth” on who Ringo Starr is.)

The centerpiece of the exhibit is an array of nearly 3,000 tiny boxes from the national Soul Box Project. Leslie Lee, a Portland, Oregon-based artist, conceived the idea after the 2017 shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas.

Each 3-by-3-inch origami box represents a person who was killed or injured by gun violence.

“Each box is different,” Manuel said. “Some of them are embroidered with designs, some have dates of death, some have photographs, favorite quotes. Some have calls to action. Some are even for pets that were caught in the crossfire.”

The Broad’s boxes come from the IHM Sisters of Monroe, a Catholic community that adopted the Soul Box Project for Michigan and Ohio. They represent gun deaths and injuries in Michigan and Ohio over a 13-month period — 2,940 boxes in all.

“Not only does each box represent someone who’s been injured or killed, it represents the person who made the box,” Manuel said. “I think that’s very powerful.”

In 1999, 19-year-old Kalamazoo College student Maggie Wardle was killed by an ex-boyfriend with a hunting rifle. Since then, her parents, Martha and Rick Omilian, have fought for gun reform like the package of six bills signed by Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in April 2023 that require background checks for all firearm sales and safe storage of firearms and ammunition.

“Maggie’s box is actually in our exhibit,” Manuel said. “Her parents have seen the box make its way across Michigan and the country. The fact that you’re looking at her and her beautiful smile — you can understand that her story is still just as important as it was years ago.”

In back of a wall behind the boxes, a short film features anti-gun-violence activist Manny Oliver, who visited the Lansing area last year with his one-man show, “Guac,” honoring his son, Joaquin, one of 17 people killed in the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Oliver, an artist and filmmaker, has celebrated Joaquin’s memory and advocated for an end to gun violence in a variety of mediums and formats. A larger-than-life set piece depicting Joaquin, which Oliver created for “Guac,” is on view near the screen.

“I witnessed him create this piece,” Manuel said. “His show, his story, left an impact on me that I’ll never forget. I’m not a father, and I don’t know what it’s like to lose a son. But he put it into art. He showed us how he deals with his pain and his trauma.”

The Broad exhibit also features a new oil painting by Díaz-Muñoz, an assistant professor at MSU and the subject of a documentary film by Boehm.

Díaz-Muñoz was wrapping up a two-hour class on Cuban history and culture when the gunman entered his classroom and opened fire.

Boehm asked Díaz-Muñoz if he would be interested in creating a work of art, in whatever medium he chose, “as an opportunity for him to process and reflect on his experience on Feb. 13.”

Díaz-Muñoz chose to make his first oil painting in 40 years. After being swamped by interview requests at last year’s anniversary, he’s limiting media interviews this year, but Boehm has kept in close contact with him.

While working with Díaz-Muñoz, Boehm found that the connection between the 2023 shooting and the Broad went deeper than he thought.

According to Boehm, Díaz-Muñoz was teaching in that classroom in Berkey Hall by request because he’s trained as an artist and architect and wanted to have a view of the Broad.

“If he wasn’t an artist and didn’t choose that room, he probably would have been in a different classroom that night,” Boehm said.

Boehm said the painting balances abstraction with realism while “trying to register some little crack of hope.”

“There are so many mass shootings that happen, but it’s very rare that one of the key witnesses, how he was positioned, is also an artist,” he said. “I think what he’s producing is very powerful, and people will be deeply moved by it.”

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