Traveling exhibit at University of Lynchburg addresses gun violence

LYNCHBURG, Va. (WDBJ) - “Counting, caring, connecting.”

Those words are the tagline for all the boxes you see at the University of Lynchburg’s Daura Museum of Art.

“This Loss We Carry” is a traveling exhibit as part of the Soul Box Project.

The project is a collection of small boxes created by people impacted by gun violence.

“When I saw these numbers after the Las Vegas shooting... I thought, we need a visual. This needs a visual,” said Leslie Lee, Soul Box Project founder.

Lee then asked people to design origami boxes personal to them to share how they’ve been impacted by gun violence.

Anything from pictures of people to messages have been created.

“When you look at them, some of them are for people who have been killed or injured, but others are statements. People are outraged or people are sending hope and love,” said Lee.

The museum says they’ve been focusing on social issues since the fall semester.

“Earlier in the fall semester we had a photography exhibition on domestic violence. We had another exhibition of drawings about the stigma of drug addiction,” said Barbara Rothermel, Daura Museum director. “When you see the number of boxes, the different things that people have written on them, it gives you a sense that this is a reality. It’s not abstract. These are real people.”

1,176 Virginians are represented by the boxes on display.

Lee hopes conversations about the issue will rise to the top with the project.

“Nobody is immune,” said Lee. “This gunfire epidemic affects us all.”

A Soul Box workshop will be held March 3 from 6 to 8 p.m. The exhibit will be on display until March 10.

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