Research document - reformatted from the original blog posts - for the installation work 1.1.2017.
1.1.2017 is a large scale jewellery work that contains portraits of each of the 66 guns used in fatal incidents on January 1st, 2017. These gun effegies are made in metal, plastic, fabric and paper, from containers crowd-sourced from the 55 places in which these acts of violence occurred. When no gun details were reported, one of two popular and high-selling default pistols was substituted. According to the Department of Justice, pistols are the largest-manufactured gun type in the US.
After crowd sourcing 73 containers from the 55 towns where the guns were used, weapons were matched to containers, the outline of each gun (or multiple weapons if someone was shot by more than one person,) was hand sawn or cut into its corresponding object. The cutouts became pendants once strung onto ball chain, while each altered container was fitted with an identification tag that included the name of the deceased and the make and model of the weapon depicted in the work.
Print made by Catherine Bowyer for the exhibition Purpose, Process, Paper in Chicago, 2019, at Kiff Clemmons studio.
