Cara Levine
This Is Not a Gun, Cell Phone

This Is Not a Gun, Cell Phone
2020
cast water-based resin
replica of ceramic cell phone made by a high-school participant at Beyond Resistance: California Lobby Day, Sacramento, CA, 2019, in collaboration with the ACLU
Edition of 7
2 x 4 x 1/4 inches

Note: Due to the nature of the material, each cast is unique. 

100% of the proceeds from this sale will go to GiveDirectly's COVID-19 efforts.

This Is Not a Gun is a long-term, multidisciplinary project, which endeavors to utilize collective creative activism to open space for healing and cultivate an increased awareness around racial profiling, police brutality, and societal trauma in America. This Is Not a Gun responds to objects that police officers have mistaken for guns, during a shooting of an unarmed civilian to open dialogue and consider how everyday objects, such as a broomstick, bible, set of keys, iPod, sunglasses, and a pack of Skittles are transformed into ones of perceived threat through the lens of racism and power.

The project, by artist Cara Levine, includes a studio practice of carving wooden sculptures of these mistaken-as-gun objects, as well as public workshops to discuss where participants shape these objects in clay, giving presence to their form, the human-rights violations, and racism prevalent in the United States today. Visit thisisnotagun.com for more information.

Cara Levine is an artist, educator, and activist based in Los Angeles. Levine is the founder of This Is Not a Gun, a multidisciplinary project aimed at creating awareness, dialogue, and action around systematic racism through art practice. She is an associate adjunct professor in Sculpture New Genres and Foundations at Otis College of Art and Design.

See Cara Levine's book This Is Not a Gun.