“Gun violence is a contemporary global human rights issue that threatens our most fundamental human right, the right to life” - Amnesty International
The twelve young people featured in Meditations in an Emergency are symbolic of the thousands killed every year by what has become the leading cause of death for American kids: gun violence.
The images have been selected from an extensive series of portraits that I made during a residency at the New-York Historical Society Museum in 2018, which represented teen activists staging ‘die-in protests’, calling for stronger gun control laws in the US. These protests - where participants lie on the ground to simulate being dead - are often employed by protest groups on a range of issues including: animal rights, anti-war, anti- trafficking, human rights, racism and environmental issues.