Michael Patrick O’Brien
#27 (2022), 2023
21 archival inkjet prints, 52 x 39 inches each
The photographs that comprise #27 (2022) are a direct reaction to the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, TX, which was the 27th school shooting to occur in 2022, and currently the third deadliest school shooting in American history. Born and raised in Houston, O’Brien is a Texas photographer who has spent 15 years traveling to Uvalde each summer.
News coverage of school shootings has become a shared cultural phenomenon that has developed its own iconography: aerial views, podiums, abandoned vehicles, home videos of the victims, and more. The frequency of their repetition has an anesthetizing effect.
Photographed with an iPhone directly from a television, these images attempt to move past iconography into the felt nature of lived trauma.
#27 (2022) belongs to the tradition of socially conscious history painting, here documenting one instance within an era of American history that has not yet passed: May 24 marked the one-year anniversary of the Robb Elementary School shooting, and 30 mass shootings have occurred in the United States in that time, 5 of which were at schools.
#27 (2022) will be on view May 27 to June 17, and one image will be on view each day.