ThIS IS NOT A GUN

The Workshop

Since the year 2000, United States police have mistaken at least 38 distinct objects as guns during shootings of a majority of young black American men. None of the victims were armed. These community driven workshops invite participants to investigate this collection of mundane objects, many of which can be found in any common household, and give presence to their form, acknowledging the human rights violations that took place, and the racism prevalent in America today. As seen in The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, BOMB Magazine + Flaunt.

  • 2 hours for up to 40 participants

    Facilitated on site, participants convene at tables, indoor or outdoor. The group is offered clay, ceramics tools, and hands-on guidance for making with clay. Participants are prompted to choose an object that personally resonates with them from the list of mistaken objects, and through hand-building, conversational prompts, and embodiment techniques, are guided through a series of intentional creative actions. The final objects are fired in a kiln, packed and shipped back to Levine’s studio, where they are included amongst TINAG’s expansive archive.

  • 90 minutes for up to 40 participants

    Virtually facilitated, participants convene online utilizing a small mailed toolkit of materials including air-dry clay, tools for carving, and a sponge. Through hand-building, conversation prompts, and embodiment techniques, participants are guided through a series of intentional creative actions, and a history of the project.

Meet The Artists

This Is Not a Gun was founded by multimedia artist Cara Levine in December of 2016 and has since facilitated over 20 workshops in arts and community organizations, corporations, and educational institutions across the United States. In January 2021, artist Angela Hennessy joined as co-director, bringing a commitment to a creative practice rooted in the exploration of trauma, grief, death, and dying.

  • Cara Levine is an artist based in Los Angeles, California where she is an Associate Adjunct Professor in Fine Art at Otis College of Art and Design. Her art explores the intersections of the physical, metaphysical, traumatic, and illusionary. She is the founder of This Is Not A Gun, and has presented in venues globally including MOCA Geffen Los Angeles, Creative Time in New York, Tenderloin Museum in San Francisco; Center for Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv, Israel; and Kyoto Seika University in Japan. She earned a BFA from the University of Michigan, and an MFA from California College of the Arts.

  • Angela Hennessy is an Oakland based artist and survivor of gun violence. She is Associate Professor at California College of the Arts where teaches courses on visual and cultural narratives of death and textile theory. For many years she served as a hospice volunteer working with families on home funerals, death vigils, and grief rituals. She trained with Final Passages, the International End of Life Doula Association and is certified in the Grief Recovery Method. She is a 2019 San Francisco Artadia Awardee and a recipient of the 2021 Joan Mitchell Fellowship.