© Joe Quint from his project "It Takes Us"
On May 23rd, 2014, news came of in a series of murders committed by a young man in Isla Vista, California, near the campus of University of California, Santa Barbara. Gun violence is a daily occurrence in the United States, but something about this incident tipped Joe Quint over the edge: he launched "It Takes Us."
"I happened to glance at that week's issue of People. The cover story was about some Kardashian wedding and there was a little blurb in the upper right corner about the shooting... with a subhead saying 'How could this happen - again?' Now, setting aside the disproportionality in importance of these two stories, I was struck by both the naivety and borderline irresponsibility of that subhead. 'How could it NOT happen again?' was my immediate reaction - why should we be surprised when - despite some small gains made in recent years by the gun violence prevention movement, there had yet to be anything remotely resembling a collective shift in our consciousness on the subject?
"I became increasingly frustrated by inaction - my own, and the inaction of my country. I could no longer simply pay lip service to the importance of reducing the over 32,000 senseless and preventable deaths that take place every year. I want to show how the crisis extends far beyond the typical media narrative of urban violence to include domestic abuse, suicide, children being injured or killed by unsecured guns in their homes, and so many more tragic cases." Joe Quint
Photographs and audio will be on exhibit June 18-20, 2015, at Howard Scott Gallery in Chelsea, NY.