Gun Show: Handling, Questioning, Discussing
Thursday, October 5, 4 - 6 p.m
Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture &
Fine Arts Amphitheater

Dr. Kathy O’Dell opens her essay in the brochure that accompanies Gun Show with this question: “How does it feel to hold a gun?” At an event on October 5, starting at 4:00 PM at the CADVC and then moving to the Fine Arts Amphitheater, attendees will have an opportunity to explore that question as they view and handle (if they so wish) a selection of David Hess’s sculptures/facsimile guns currently on display in his exhibition. As attendees participate in the viewing and handling, special guests will be present to facilitate small group discussions on many of the wide-ranging issues that arise around guns: who does or does not own them, who should or should not own them, whether or not to legislate them, safe ways to use them, ramifications of their use or misuse, and how issues of race, class, gender, and age are embedded in these questions.

SPECIAL GUESTS:

Amy Berbert, UMBC Visual Arts alumna, creator of photo project “Remembering the Stains on the Sidewalk”

Richard Chisolm, UMBC Visual Arts alumnus, creator of “Guns and Choices,” 15-min excerpt from in-progress feature film (excerpt on view at Gun Show)

Dr. Firmin DeBrabander, MICA faculty in Humanistic Studies & author of Do Guns Make Us Free? Democracy and the Armed Society

Paul Dillon, UMBC Deputy Chief of Police

Liz Faust, MICA alumna, MFA Curatorial Practice thesis on David Hess’s Gun Show

“Mama Rashida” Forman-Bey, program director, WombWork Productions, Baltimore

David Hess, artist, Gun Show

“Mama Kay” Lawal-Muhammad, artistic director, WombWork Productions, Baltimore

Hank Mink, UMBC Mechanical Engineering, Advisor to UMBC Rifle & Pistol Club

Dominic Nell, artist (Nell Aware House), community activist (For My Kidz, Kids Safe Zone), entrepreneur (City Weeds, MyNiche)

Dr. Sheri Parks, UMCP faculty in American Studies & frequent commentator on WYPR

A reception at the CADVC will follow the event.

Admission to the exhibition and all related programming is free and open to the public.

The Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and is located in the Fine Arts Building. For more information call 410-455-3188.

Free parking for this event will be available in Lot 8 from 3:30 p.m. Click here for a campus map.

Photo: Gun Show at the CADVC. Photo by Marlayna Demond ’11 for UMBC.