Speaking Portraits: A Conversation with Stolen Lives and Families.
Last night EFA Project Space hosted an event in conjunction with its current exhibition Double Visions. “Speaking Portraits” highlighted Fay Chiang’s Portraits (on view now as part of Double Visions), and brought together the Stolen Lives Project and the families of young victims of police brutality. This event was very emotionally charged, but also extremely powerful. Hearing these men and women speak about the tragic killings of their children and family members was truly heartbreaking, but the sense of unity and camaraderie amongst the people at last night’s event was very prevalent.
Kathie Cheng, coordinator of the Stolen Lives Project, gave us harrowing statistics on police brutality: “1101 people were killed by police brutality last year in the United States (this only counts the ones reported on by mainstream media). There have been 239 people killed in 2015 so far, and 748 since Eric Garner (July 2014)”.
“Speaking Portraits” was not just an event to share the stories of these young victims and their families, it was also a cry for change.
The mission of the Stolen Lives Project is to assemble a national list of people killed by law enforcement agents from 1990 to the present. Through grassroots efforts, over 2000 cases were documented in the second edition of the Stolen Lives book, which was published in 1999. Although just the tip of the iceberg, these 2000+ are evidence of a horrifying national epidemic of police brutality. The victims of police violence were part of our society, but rarely are their lives or names publicized, or the real circumstances surrounding their deaths investigated and made known. The Stolen Lives Project aims to restore some dignity to the lives lost. Though their lives have been stolen from us, we will not allow them to be forgotten.