WHO
Our Monument is a creative healing collective founded by activist and public artist Ann Lewis. The overarching project is committed to actualizing a world bereft of sexual and gender-based violence by creating inspiring public spaces for healing and education, through creative collaboration with survivors. A Kind Word (see image for prototype) is the first of many local monuments within the Our Monument project that will build bridges between survivor communities across the country, ultimately coalescing to create a national monument honoring the resiliency and strength of survivors of sexual violence through community building and healing.
We hosted our first cohort of survivors in a 3-day creative healing session in Esopus, NY during the summer of 2021. Several months later they shared their ideas for a world free from sexual violence in a series of brainstorming sessions. These courageous women found strength in one another through art-making, contemplation and conversation. Celebrating their bravery and showing gratitude for the trust they placed in the Our Monument project, A Kind Word reflects their mutual compassion for one another and takes a step closer to a safer, more compassionate, and just world.
WHAT
A Kind Word will be a fourteen-foot participatory public sculpture harnessing the healing power of human compassion through crowd- sourced statements of empathy and support. Designed as an intimate one-person experience, this auricular space is activated using an infrared sensor to recognize a participant’s presence. It then envelopes them within a verbal embrace of kind statements recorded and shared by strangers. Ultimately, these statements are intended to relay a sense of supportive kinship and mutual recognition amongst the participants. This act of witnessing and forging community is inspired by the grace and tenderness that was observed among the members of Our Monument’s first cohort. A Kind Word was developed in response to that collective grace. This design may be iterative for future cohorts, but it is imperative that Our Monument responds to the unique needs and vision of each group.
WHERE
The first edition of A Kind Word will be a traveling monument that shares the concept with communities all over the country.
WHEN
We expect to unveil a traveling version of A Kind Word in Spring of 2023.
HOW
Our Monument would not be possible without the generous support of our partners and patrons. If you are interested in learning more about how you or your organization can support the Our Monument project, please contact Sam Giarratani at Sam@NegativeSpace.rocks
toe tags, ink, ribbon, metal
dimensions variable
2016
... and counting is a chrono-reactive installation that presents facts around each police-involved death in America during 2016. By offering only the facts, this work gives the viewer an objective and all-encompassing opportunity to face our nation's heartbreaking and ubiquitous problem of death at the hands of police. …and counting tells the stories of all 1,093 lives lost in police-related conflicts that year.
Define Progress is an ongoing project highlighting gentrification, corporatization, and the displacement of our communities. This custom barricade tape is used to call attention to recently closed small businesses, residential buildings that are being emptied to become luxury rentals, and community spaces being gobbled up by “progress.”
porcelain, ribbon, metal, plastic, gun lock box
dimensions variable
2018
This is Who We Are is a participatory performance reflecting the effects of gun violence on American children. Offering the participants a single pair of scissors and 40 pairs of porcelain baby shoes hanging from ribbons, this work challenges our preconceived notions of societal expectations around complicity and gun violence solutions. The participants are given no instructions, just offered the scissors after they are removed from a locked gun box while surrounded by the dangling baby shoes. Providing no instructions allows for limitless possibilities in participation and expansive capacity for imaginative solutions to this grave issue.
ceramics
dimensions variable
2015-ongoing
SHATTERING is a participatory performance in which individuals destroy fragile items in a private space. It explores the fear of untapped anger and the freedom of release by highlighting the beauty of being present and the euphoria of letting go. After the performance, the shards are sorted. Some are discarded, and others are used to create works. SHATTERING is a reflection of our broken governmental and social systems. It asks us as a society to examine what is worth saving and what needs to be left as a relic of an outmoded system.
wood, gasoline, glass, paint
dimensions variable
2015
Our Future Past is a performance centered around the divisiveness and destruction of our communities due to police violence. This project uses force and destructive means to break down the barriers that divide the activists and community members from the police officers patrolling their neighborhoods. By revoking the purpose of a barricade, this project considers a future where police are rendered useless and are only relics of our violent past hang in museums to educate our children.
Never Again is Now is a participatory installation which engages people to reflect upon our responsibility as citizens to state-sponsored family separation, and the trauma-inducing detention centers along our southern borders. Using social-reactive light works and participatory compassion, this project explores our ability to dismantle inhumane societal and governmental structures with direct action and creativity. It seeks to expand hope and empathy in a space and time devoid of such luxuries.
ink on 156 lb cold pressed watercolor paper
dimensions variable
2017
This series reflects on the absurd lengths that American politicians will go to maintain or expand their party's power by gerrymandering congressional districts around the country.
...and counting (Syria) is a chrono-reactive, hanging installation that documents in real time the deaths of Syrian children over an extended period. It was first displayed at Moniker Art Fair in London 2018. Throughout the 4 day fair, roughly 26 children lost their lives due to the Syrian war. Each pair of disfigured and shattered porcelain baby shoes hung from orange ribbons suspended from the ceiling representing the loss of one innocent, young life. ..and counting (Syria) is a means to showcase the calamity of war, the exponential effects of our world’s torpor, and an opportunity to instigate action in the visitors.
inmate jumpsuits, ink
60" x 30
2014
Autoincarceration was a month-long performance protest in 2014 to engage the public around the issues of mass incarceration. When prison abolition was still a preposterous concept to most, this performance brought the discussion into our public spaces. Through conversations, research, and experiences, I added markings, text, and drawings to 7 standard-issue jumpsuits often worn by people who are incarcerated. I wore the series continuously for a month, all day, every day.
women's underwear, girl's underwear, beer, dirt, glass, blood, tears, grass, twine, wood, metal
dimensions variable
2016
One in Five of Us is a hanging installation representing the statistic that 1 in 5 American womxn will be raped in her lifetime. Fifty pairs of womxn and girls' underwear hang from the ceiling. Forty of which are untouched. The other 10 are stained, torn, shredded, and otherwise destroyed to represent the trauma of rape.
mixed media on wood
dimensions variable
2017-ongoing
Matriots are those who support and defend their planet and all of its people regardless of borders, religion, identity, or nation states with unwavering devotion.
This series celebrates the power and beauty of our diversity by honoring the stories of radical women working to make the world a more accepting and loving place.
Messages of personal and public significance can be found hidden within the lines of this series. These works reflect upon the subliminal messaging of advertising. The hidden statements engage the viewer to look past the noise to find meaning.
found toilet seats, fishing wire, paint; 15' x 12' x 8'; 2014
After discovering an abandoned hotel riff with materials BAMN & I created installations to reflect upon the wastefulness of hyper capitalism and the evaporation of small businesses in the shadow of 3 major hotel chains.
Going to a protest? Need Art? Download any of these images for free, and get involved in changing the world.
I can neither confirm nor deny I had a hand in any of this
#checkyourselfie was an online participatory performance in 2013 in which I asked people to use the selfie to highlight issues instead of using it for vanity. With over 200 submissions issues ranged from human trafficking, environmental destruction, to self love. Each one of my works seen here discusses the self in relation to surroundings and our understanding of the importance of our environment and those within it.
A collection of my work for review by the UCSC Environmental Art and Social Practice MFA committee.
