The Gun Violence Memorial Project

Jha D. Amazi earned her Bachelor of Science in Architecture and Urban Studies in 2008. In 2022, she became Principal at MASS Design Group and began leading the Public Memory and Memorials Lab. One of the major projects of this lab is the Gun Violence Memorial Project, which was started in 2019. In each city the Memorial Project visits, it gathers remembrance objects from families who have lost members to gun violence. The Project has worked in Chicago, Washington D.C., Columbus, New York, Springfield, Louisville, Minneapolis and Boston among other cities.

The Gun Violence Memorial Project is on display at the Institute of Contemporary Art through January 2025. The ICA describes the exhibit as a “collaboration between Boston-based MASS Design Group and Songha & Company, where artist Hank Willis Thomas is Creative Director, in partnership with the gun violence prevention organization Purpose Over Pain, the project was launched at the 2019 Chicago Architecture Biennale. It comprises four glass houses, each built of 700 clear bricks, a reference to the average number of gun deaths every week in the United States. Many of the bricks hold remembrance objects such as baby shoes, graduation tassels, and photographs offered by families in honor of loved ones whose lives have been taken due to gun violence. These living memorials invite us to view the impact of gun violence through individual personal narratives.”