Review
Shot: 101 Survivors of Gun Violence in AmericaKathy Shorr. PowerHouse, $39.95 (136p) ISBN 978-1-57687-833-0Photographer Shorr, whose work focuses on documentary, portraiture, and street photography, visualizes the toll of gun-violence through photos of survivors in this visceral, powerful book. Featuring portraits of ethnically and racially diverse survivors ranging in age from eight to 80, many photographed in the exact locations where they were shot, Shorr's work provides a moving visual narrative of gun violence, revealing the power of the human spirit to persevere and go forward with strength and courage. Her photos focus on survivorhood, depicting the physical scars of her subjects. Short biographies of each survivor are compiled in an index at the end of the book, preceded by a short essay by Tanya Liv Zakrison, a trauma surgeon at Jackson Memorial Hospital at the University of Miami, who describes how America has come to have the highest rate of gun violence among high-income countries. Besides striking photographs, the book includes affecting quotes from survivors such as Therese D'Encarnacao, who states: "Everything is either an opportunity to grow or an obstacle to keep you from growing. You get to choose." Color photos. (Apr.)
..."Shorr's photos of individuals lifting their shirts to reveal the scars from their wounds captures a touching, vulnerable gesture. Amid tattoos, wrinkles, stretch marks and exposed under garments are the lines and raised marks on their skin that trace where their bodies were repaired. The raised keloids, or scar tissue, create sculpture-like forms, lines and hash marks in a similar manner to the Japanese art of Kintsugi. The word Kintsugi means "golden rejoining," a 15th-century metal art dedicated to the restoration of fine ceramic pottery. A mixture of gold and epoxy are artfully applied to the edges of the broken pottery. The shards are reconstructed and the result is a restored piece of pottery with gleaming gold fissures. In the case of this ancient art form, it's about the power of transforming broken ceramic pottery into beautifully resurrected masterpieces."From the review by Cary Benbow, F-Stop Magazine, April 15, 2017
..."If Kathy Shorr were as hopeless as I am, she never would have made this book. It takes too much time, and too much effort, if you don't believe it will make a difference.Creating things, fighting back, pushing for change, making beauty out of heartbreak, these impulses suffuse this project. So I'll let it speak for itself.
Bottom Line: A brilliant examination of our national disgrace"
From the review by Jonathan Blaustein in aPhotoEditor, November 17, 2017
The portraits of survivors in Kathy Shorr's new photography book, SHOT: 101 Survivors of Gun Violence in America, make one hard-hitting point: gun violence is everywhere.
"When you have a gun pointed at you, you're completely helpless and at their mercy. That feeling is probably one of the most terrible things that a human being can feel," Shorr tells PEOPLE.
She knows from personal experience: About a decade ago, she and her then-toddler daughter were the victims of an armed robbery.
They weren't hurt, but the frightening encounter as well as her time as teacher in inner city schools in New York City motivated the project.
"I would always see kids coming with these memorial cards on their necks for family or friends that were lost to gun violence," she said. "I started thinking about how they had become folk heroes that people were remembering. But there were so many people who were injured by guns that no one was speaking about."
Shorr, a full-time photographer and teacher, spent two years on her own dime traveling the country to photograph survivors of gun violence -- most of whom she shot at the same location where the crime transpired. The result of that journey is a book that highlights the faces and stories behind a startling statistic: 15,075 Americans were killed by guns in 2016 while 30,624 were injured, according to the non-profit nonpartisan research group Gun Violence Archive.
PEOPLE Magazine, April 17, 2017 Sam Gillette & Chris Harris
About the Author
Kathy Shorr was born in Brooklyn, New York. She is a photographer whose work crosses the borders of documentary, portraiture, and street photography. She received her undergraduate degree in photography from The School of Visual Arts. Shorr also has an Masters in Education that was received while working as a New York Teaching Fellow in public schools in crisis. Her work has been shown in galleries in New York City and was featured in the celebrated Visa pour l'Image in Perpignan, France. She lives and works in New York City. Dr. Tanya L. Zakrison is a trauma surgeon and surgical intensivist at Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center in Miami, Florida. She is an Assistant Professor of Surgery at the University of Miami and lectures in the Department of Public Health. Her public health training was through the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health with coursework in Baltimore and Barcelona with professors Vicente Navarro, Carles Muntaner, and Joan Benach. They inspired her to explore the upstream "Causes of the Causes" of violence and trauma. Dr. Zakrison is originally from Toronto, Canada and a graduate of the University of Toronto. Max Kozloff is aNew York-basedwriter on art and photography. He has had several shows of his own color street photography, exemplified in his monograph New York Over the Top, Contrasto, 2013. He is the author of The Theatre of the Face:Portrait Photography Since 1900 (Phaidon, 2007).
Max Kozloff (b. 1933) is a prolific and influential art critic who was Executive Editor of Artforum in the mid 1970s. His many books about photography include The Theatre of the Face: Portrait Photography Since 1900, Phaidon, 2007; Now Becoming Then, a monograph on Duane Michals, Twin Palms Publishers, 1990; and an artist’s book of his own work, New York Over the Top, Contrasto, 2013. Additionally, he has been awarded many prizes and honors including a Guggenheim, Fulbright, and NEA.
