Image: Moment from the Beyond Memorial Site Walk with Immanuel Oni; image by Destiny Mata.

Join us on October 25th for a virtual At the Table conversation on Guns in the City with guest artist Immanuel Oni

Join us for our next At the Table: Dialogue + Art on Wednesday, October 25th from 6pm to 7:30pm EST on Zoom. The theme of this intimate, salon-style conversation will be Guns in the City with guest artist Immanuel Oni.  

At the Table conversations are open to anyone interested in the subject, and no expertise is required! Interested in joining? Email dylan@moreart.org to RSVP.

Click here to learn more about Beyond Memorial and Oni’s practice.

Moving away from the easily stereotyped stigma of “gun violence” as imagined to exist in certain neighborhoods – often wielded as a tool to control segments of the population – we’d like to expand the discussion to more broadly treat the problem of the prevalence of guns – from ghost guns to the militarization of our police – in New York City, as we start to imagine what a cultural and social healing practice might look like. How do we cope with or deal with the psychological toll of gun violence, against the backdrop of a powerful gun lobby and the failure to enact sensible gun control legislation at a national and regional level? And what are the costs (physical, psycho-social, economic) of living alongside a militarized police force? 

This conversation builds on the workshops and visioning of Immanuel Oni’s Beyond Memorial, More Art’s 2023 Engaging Artist Commission, which seeks to transform sites of trauma into sacred spaces and sites of healing. We are grateful to Oni for spearheading this work with a recent in person At the Table gathering in which we discussed how more culturally competent and visionary planning, architecture, and infrastructure might lead toward more tangible forms of spatial justice for the city.

More Art has been hosting At the Table: Dialogue + Art—intimate, salon-style conversations—with our community since 2019. Intended to be a platform for thought-provoking and lively conversations in shared space, whether virtual or in-person, At the Table: Dialogue + Art also provides an opportunity to solidify and build new relationships with artists and community members. The goal is to have participants find themselves stimulated and inspired by the conversation, and valued as an integral part of the More Art family. 

If you’d like to support more programs like Beyond Memorial, please feel free to make a donation here.