A photo exhibit of Miami mothers affected by gun violence has to come down. What we know
One photo shows a woman holding dreadlocks. Another a woman grasping an urn. A third is of a woman standing on a playground.
The common thread: these are all photographs of mothers who have lost children to gun violence.
A total of 44 mothers from the Miami area are featured in an outdoor exhibit entitled “SHOT: We the Mothers Miami” that encircles Overtown’s Theodore Gibson Park. Created by New York-based photographer Kathy Shorr, the photo essay puts a face to the horrors of gun violence and was originally scheduled to run from Sept. 27 until Nov. 1. But less than three weeks in, the exhibit must be taken down, according to emails received by the Miami Herald. Shorr says she was informed that her project must be removed by Oct. 18, a move that has confused some but drawn support from others.
The exhibit is “a platform to draw people and show them the pain that’s inflicted to the mother, the whole family, the community in general,” said Pascale Marra, one of the photographed mothers whose son Karim Constant was killed in March 2022. “It means a whole lot.”
Miami-Dade County Commissioner Keon Hardemon, who has been accused of driving the exhibit’s early exit, pointed to its location.
“A children’s park is not a suitable location to display such agony,” Hardemon wrote in a statement, calling the display a “powerful exhibit” that should be moved to County Hall or “any exhibition hall under my purview.” “Children should be exposed to positivity and joyfulness, especially at a place they visit to recreate.”
The issue, according to Shorr, is communication – or lack thereof. Shorr provided the Herald with an email that shows she reached out to Hardemon’s office about the exhibit in December 2022. She never received a response. Shorr says even the Miami-Dade County Mayor’s office reached out to Hardemon but to no avail.
“If he was so adamant about it not being at a park, why not engage with us prior to the exhibit it going up?” said Shorr.
Marra agreed with Shorr, calling the exhibit’s location “perfect.”
“I felt like it was a great platform to educate,” Marra said. “Kids can see the pain that gun violence causes every day. They come out and they’ll see those faces. It’s an an opportunity to convey an important message about responsible firearm handling.”
Marra met Shorr less than six months after her son’s passing. Participating in the project, she recalled, was “therapeutic.” The exhibit’s first location was at Southside Park in Brickell in May 2023 and Marra said she found herself going to the photo “all the time.” When the exhibit’s run came to an end, Marra was one of the people who advocated for its move to Gibson Park.
“It became very personal to me,” Marra said.
There are other mothers, however, that feel left out from Shorr’s project. Tangela Sears, the president and founder of Florida Parents of Murdered Children, an organization that pushes for legislation to curb gun violence, was featured in the exhibit yet she disagreed with its presence in Overtown due to its failure to include mothers from that neighborhood.
“I don’t want my picture up where the families in the community don’t have their pictures up,” Sears said, adding it was “painful” to field calls from dismayed mothers like Tranell Harris, whose 16-year-old son Richard Hallman was fatally shot in Overtown in March 2015.
“It’s a shame,” Harris added. “We wouldn’t go to Parkland and put up pictures of Liberty City and Overtown parents because that’d be disrespectful.”
Sears ultimately wants the focus to be on legislation that can better protect communities like Overtown, a goal she shares with Shorr. A similar version of the exhibit that featured 51 mothers from Philadelphia ran in the northeastern city in 2021, which Shorr said received “a great response.” Shorr decided to do a Miami photo essay, which she created over a six month span beginning in August 2022, in an effort to eventually create a website where mothers from across the country can post self-portraits to show the “collateral damage of gun violence,” she explained. The pushback she received – from both government officials and people like Sears – has been unprecedented.
“I’ve never experienced anything like this,” Shorr said.
