Studies in Futility

When my daughter was a kindergartener in Ottawa, my in-laws phoned me from their car to say they had driven by her school and that it was surrounded by police cars and fire trucks. We lived only a few blocks away, so I walked over. I assumed "fire drill," and thought naively, "at least we don't live in the U.S., or else I would be worried about guns." It was a gun after all at her school - fake, but who knew at the time.

My daughter and I made the news that night because she sobbed hysterically as I carried her away from the school.

She was sobbing because she was only four and she was leaving on pizza day before the pizza.

Four-year-old priorities.

I brought her home safe and sound.

Mom priorities.

An American transplant to Canada, I have viewed the increasing gun violence in my home nation from an outside window. In 1999, I watched Columbine unfold from my in-laws’ living room and listened to the subsequent pleas for gun legislation. I became a mother in 2009 and therefore it was with an unimaginable sense of grief and horror that I watched the coverage of Sandy Hook. The pleas for legislative changes and gun control reform became more desperate. Still, reform in the US has largely been unattainable.

Studies in Futility is an exhibition about loss, fear, empathy, and frustration.