Zarinah Lomax stands beside portraits she commissioned, principally of younger individuals who died from gunfire. “The aim is to not make folks cry,” Lomax says. “It’s for households and for individuals who have gone by this to know that they aren’t forgotten.”
Christine Spolar for KFF Well being Information
conceal caption
toggle caption
Christine Spolar for KFF Well being Information
PHILADELPHIA — Zarinah Lomax is an unusual documentarian of our instances. She has designed clothes from yellow crime-scene tape and styled jackets with hand-painted calls for like “Don’t Shoot” in purple, black, and gold script. Each few months, she curates reveals of dozens of portraits of Philadelphians — vibrant, daring, bigger-than-life faces — at pop-up galleries to lift an alarm about gun violence in her hometown and America.
Lomax estimates she has a thousand canvasses by native artists in her storage unit, principally depicting younger individuals who died from gunfire, in addition to some exhibiting the moms, sisters, pals and mourners left to ask why.
“The aim is to not make folks cry,” stated Lomax, a producer, speak present host and group activist from Philadelphia, who has traveled to New York, Atlanta, and Miami to collaborate on comparable artwork exhibitions on trauma. “It’s for households and for individuals who have gone by this to know that they aren’t forgotten.”
Every particular person “shouldn’t be a quantity,” she stated. “That is anyone’s little one. Any person’s son, anyone’s daughter who was working towards one thing,” she stated. “The portraits usually are not simply portraits. They’re telling us what the implications are for what’s taking place in our cities.”
In 2020, firearms turned the No. 1 reason behind demise for youngsters and teenagers — from each suicides and assaults — and recent analysis on the general public well being disaster from Harvard Medical College’s Blavatnik Institute present how these losses ripple by households and neighborhoods with vital financial and psychological prices.
Painted portraits commissioned by Zarinah Lomax. Every particular person “shouldn’t be a quantity. That is anyone’s little one. Any person’s son, anyone’s daughter who was working towards one thing,” Lomax says. “The portraits usually are not simply portraits. They’re telling us what the implications are for what’s taking place in our cities.”
Christine Spolar for KFF Well being Information
conceal caption
toggle caption
Christine Spolar for KFF Well being Information
Bringing statistics to life
On June 25, U.S. Surgeon Basic Vivek Murthy declared gun violence a public well being disaster, noting: “On daily basis that passes we lose extra children to gun violence. The extra kids who’re witnessing episodes of gun violence, the extra kids who’re shot and survive which might be coping with a lifetime of bodily and psychological well being impacts.”
Philadelphia has recorded greater than 9,000 deadly and nonfatal shootings since 2020, with about 80% of the victims recognized as Black, in line with the town controller. Amongst these injured or useless, about 60% have been age 30 or youthful.
Lomax has been a singular, and maybe unlikely, drive in making the statistics unforgettable. Since 2018, when a younger pal poised to graduate from Penn State College was shot to demise on a Sunday afternoon in Philadelphia, Lomax has got down to assist therapeutic amongst those that expertise violence.
She launched a present on PhillyCAM, a group entry media channel, to encourage folks to speak about weapons and opioids and grief. She organized style reveals with native artists and households that targeted on bearing witness to misery. And he or she seized on portraiture, commissioning items from native artists by her nonprofit, The Apologues, as a approach to memorialize the lives, not the deaths, of Philadelphia’s younger.
She started monitoring shootings on social media, in information accounts, and typically by phrase of mouth. In 2022, Metropolis Corridor opened three flooring to a exceptional exhibition of misplaced lives, organized by Lomax and created by dozens of artists.
She lately shared the portraits at a summit sponsored by the nonprofit Brady: United Towards Gun Violence and CeaseFirePA. The assembly supplied steering on implementing rules to stop straw gun purchases that propel crime and supplied knowledge on weapon trafficking throughout state traces. Lomax knew the artwork, displayed alongside the stage, introduced dwelling the stakes.
Have a look at these faces, she stated. These folks had promise. What occurred? What will be accomplished?
Lomax, now 40, stated the conversations she begins have goal. Some work she provides to households. Others she shops for future reveals.
“This isn’t what I got down to do in life,” she stated. “After I was rising up, I assumed I’d be a nurse. However I assume I’m form of nursing folks this manner.”
Therapeutic for ‘invisible accidents’
To this point this yr, Philadelphia has seen a drop within the variety of murders, in line with an internet database by AH Datalytics, however ranks among the many high 5 cities in homicide depend. Final yr, the Harvard researchers established that communities and households are left susceptible by gun accidents.
The 2023 research led by Zirui Track, an affiliate professor of well being care coverage at Harvard Medical College, examined knowledge associated to newborns by age 19. The analysis documented a “large” financial toll, with well being care spending growing by a mean of $35,000 for survivors within the yr after a taking pictures, and life-altering psychological well being challenges.
Survivors of shootings and their caregivers, whether or not coping with bodily accidents or generalized concern, usually battle with “long-lasting, invisible accidents, together with psychological and substance-use issues,” in line with Track, who can be a common internist at Massachusetts Basic Hospital. His research discovered that oldsters of injured kids skilled a 30% improve in psychiatric issues in contrast with mother and father whose kids didn’t maintain gunshot accidents.
Desiree Norwood, who paints with acrylics, has been serving to Lomax since 2021. Like all of the artists, she’s paid by Lomax. She has accomplished about 30 portraits, at all times after sitting down with the topic’s household. “I get a backstory so I can incorporate that within the portrait,” she stated. “Generally we cry. Generally we pray. Generally we attempt to uplift one another. It’s arduous to do.”
“I hope someday I’d not have to color one other portrait,” stated Norwood, a mom of 5 kids. “The concept Zarinah has had so many reveals, with quite a few individuals who have died, is frightening and heartbreaking.”
Mike Doughty, a self-taught digital artist, was amongst those that needed to assist to “honor and to supply a greater take a look at who these folks have been.” Doughty, a metropolis worker who works at a courthouse, could also be greatest recognized inside Philadelphia for a collection of fanciful murals through which he has grouped well-known natives similar to Will Smith, Grace Kelly, and Kevin Hart.
He has produced about 150 portraits on his iPad and laptop computer, working with Lomax’s group, The Apologues, to greatest match a face with a phrase, embedded within the scene, that telegraphs the misplaced potential of youth.
“Initially it was arduous to do,” stated Doughty, who works from household pictures. “I look and I feel: They’re children. Simply children.”
One time, he acquired a textual content from Lomax searching for a portrait of a rapper he acknowledged from artwork and music reveals. One other day, he opened an electronic mail to discover a picture of a person he knew from highschool.
In Could, Doughty shared on Instagram his work course of for a portrait of Derrick Gant, a rapper with the stage title Phat Geez, who was gunned down in March. The killing occurred a number of weeks after the rapper launched “No Gunzone,” a music video referring to an Instagram account that promotes anti-violence efforts within the metropolis.
Doughty, 33, who grew up within the Nicetown part of north Philadelphia, wryly famous: “It wasn’t so good.” Lomax’s exhibitions, he stated, permit households, even neighborhoods, to kind by sorrow and ache.
“I went to the final one and a mom got here up and stated, ‘Did you draw my little one’s portrait?’ She simply fell into my arms, crying. It was such a second,” he stated. “And a reminder on why we do what we do.”
KFF Well being Information is a nationwide newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about well being points and is likely one of the core working packages at KFF — an impartial supply for well being coverage analysis, polling, and journalism.