The National Youth Art Movement Against Gun Violence utilizes visual art by local youth and a documentary style web series to draw awareness to the impact of gun violence on our most vulnerable populations in our Nation’s hardest hit cities starting in Chicago. The outdoor art exhibit/tour will superimpose the selected work of 35 youth artists in Chicago (using wallscapes and augmented reality) o
n city buildings and a coordinated schedule of youth performance art experiences in front of designated artwork will provide a visual and visceral understanding of the youth experience amidst the gun violence in the city. A complementary web series will serve to broaden the awareness of the gun violence issue beyond Chicago and to further showcase the work and the lives of the selected youth artists by documenting the work of the project. The long-term vision of this project is that it will be an annual visual arts campaign for youth to express to community leaders and all adults, through an undeniable and large-scale platform, how our actions as leaders affect the city’s youth. Additionally, every year each new cohort of selected youth artists will have the opportunity to peer lead the development of an outdoor art exhibit in another US city experiencing similar issues of gun violence like Baltimore, MD. Thus, in the same way that charter schools scale their operations by adding a new grade a year, this project will add a new city a year and increasing numbers of cohorts of youth artist activists across the country in order to galvanize a national youth movement against gun violence.
