GINA LEE ROBBINS
Ouroboros:19 and Encounters
7650 Wilcox Street, Forest Park, IL, 60130
28” x 42” x 7” and dimensions variable
Cotton, wool and acrylic yarn, plastic bags, nylon stockings, brass bullet casings, CDC underlying cause of death data 2000-2018; and 624 pieces of porcelain imprinted with the interior of clenched fist and treated with fingerprints of cobalt carbonate before firing, wire, collected media reports on fatal encounters with law enforcement in Cook County, IL for the period 2000-2021.
$1623 and $1840
Artist’s Note: Ouroboros: 19 is an attempt to continue a process begun in 2020.... That summer I watched¹ the weekend tallies of death by gunfire headline my news feed. The media seemed to focus especially on the very youngest casualties of this violence.
I had a good supply of green and white weaving yarn, and after unraveling the skeins, I began making simple, tight slip knots in bundles of 200 strands. I consulted the historic data on death by gunfire in Cook County, and continued this meditative knotting, snipping the length when I’d accounted for the victims under the age of 18 for a given year. I began with 2018, and went back year by year until I’d used up over 800 feet of yarn. I got through the year 2000, and completed 1123 knots. I staged impromptu installations of "19 Under 18" in sites throughout Chicago.
In 2022, the numbers of children affected by gun violence hadn’t seemed to drop at all. I attempted to add to the work, only to learn that much of the data in the interim had been suppressed by the CDC. "Ouroboros:19" is my 2022 response to what seems to be a hopeless. never-ending cycle.
Encounters is the result of my journey through data. I read every reported story of a life lost in the presence of law enforcement between the dates January 1, 2000, and April 30, 2021, in Cook County. As I read each story, I rolled a small wad of porcelain clay in my hands. When I finished I said the deceased’s name aloud, and made a fist, squeezing the clay in my palm. I repeated this process for all 624 individuals whose stories were reported in the media. Before firing the porcelain, I rubbed cobalt carbonate into my hands and loosely touched the forms with my fingertips, leaving random remnants of blue on their surfaces. I strung the fired pieces together with steel wire, by year.
ART-IN-PLACE is organized by CNL Productions and Terrain Exhibitions.
