My Favorite Toy

Photographs

Installation

On December 12, 2012, my twin daughters were born. Two days later, cradling my newborn daughters, I watched the news that 20 schoolchildren, between the ages of 5 and 10, were murdered at Sandy Hook Elementary School. At 3:34 p.m., President Obama entered the White House Briefing Room, faltered, wiped away tears, and for 11 seconds, was silent. He was something beyond presidential. He was a parent.

This is the world my daughters, and all the children born before and after Sandy Hook had entered. A world where the politics of such carnage is absurdly predictable. Calls for stricter gun laws, a ban on assault weapons, and high-capacity magazines are met with Second Amendment platitudes, arming teachers, bulletproof backpacks, and offers of “Thoughts and prayers”. A world where children are aware “bad people” may kill them, police stand guard at drop-offs and pickups, and the leading cause of death among children in America is gun violence.

• February 14^th, 2018: 17 people are murdered at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. My daughters were 5.
• May 24^th, 2022: 19 first graders and two teachers are murdered at Robbs Elementary School. My daughters were 9.
• March 27^th, 2023: 6 people, 3 nine-year-olds, are murdered at Covenant School. My daughters were 10.

And the list goes on…

Days after Sandy Hook, the father of a victim was on CNN speaking with profound courage about his son’s short life, ending with a photograph of his son’s “favorite toy”: A stuffed rabbit. It was a moving portrait of his son. A surreal image of innocence gone. A chilling aide-mémoire of an epidemic that’s uniquely American. For 11 years, that photograph pierced the consciousness.

Digging out toys my daughters played with when they were of the age of the children murdered at Newtown, the variety hauntingly echoed the children killed. Children of different cultures, racial, and gender backgrounds but exactly the same: Innocent. My Favorite Toy features 11 of those toys to signify how long Obama stood in silence. The 12th image (#11, America’s Favorite Toy) aims at a toy school bus to denote the cruel tragedies it inflicts on children, parents, teachers, and communities. The blue backdrop draws on it being favored in classrooms to foster learning and creativity. The minimalistic approach and the gun-related 911 calls in the installation create discord between what’s seen and what’s known: The loss of innocence each time a child dies from gun violence.