UPDATED: January 29, 2019 at 9:22 p.m.

Evan Starling-Davis, an inaugural Writing Our Lives Literary Arts Fellow at Syracuse University, brings the issue of gun violence to light through a multidisciplinary art installation.

Starling-Davis is curating “in the clearing.” — an exhibition in collaboration with artists Tony Washington and Hlumela Matika. The art installation is on display until Feb. 7 at the Community Folk Art Center and explores the emotional effects of systemic gun violence on individuals living in America’s Rust Belt region.

As a literary artist, educator and playwright, Starling-Davis focuses on literacy education and building creative spaces in Rust Belt cities to help maximize the cities’ artistic programming, he said. He began working on the project after winning a grant from CNY Arts to develop a new play. The play, “Madness, In the Clearing of Blue,” inspired Starling-Davis to translate his playwriting skills into the new exhibition.

“I want to bring more art to Syracuse,” Starling-Davis said. “I’m looking to build more art spaces for communities that don’t have those art spaces.”

The “in the clearing.” exhibit features various artistic mediums, including excerpts from Starling-Davis’ plays and poetry, Washington’s ink block test paintings and Matika’s video installations, Starling-Davis said. In addition to his paintings, Washington will donate 10 percent of the proceeds from the artwork sales made at his exhibition to the Community Folk Art Center’s summer youth camp.

Starling-Davis, whose family hails from Syracuse, hopes that “in the clearing.” gives viewers a sense of how families in communities cope with the emotions that come with gun violence, he said.

FBI crime statistics note that Syracuse ranked fourth in regard to the most murders in upstate New York in 2016. Thirty murders were documented in Syracuse that year, with a total of 1,063 violent crimes.

“I really just want to bring it back down to Earth,” Starling-Davis said. “This is an issue that affects us in our communities. How are we, as responsible citizens, going to engage in this issue and talk about this issue?”

Through inviting youth groups, the CFAC is hoping to represent Starling-Davis’ work as an emotional journey into the trials and tragedies these families experience, said Tamar Smithers, the center’s director of education.

“This is going on in communities all over the nation,” Smithers said. “The youth groups that we invite experience this every day. I think it can be the start to seeing the issue in a new way.”

She said Starling-Davis’ exhibition can inspire people to begin drawing solutions to gun violence issues in the U.S.

For Starling-Davis, the project is more of a discussion rather than an exhibition — it gives viewers a different perspective on the issue of gun violence.

“I’m looking at it as its own art piece, as its own conversation,” Starling-Davis said.

In addition to “in the clearing.,” Starling-Davis is also in the progress of playwriting “Monuments.” The play explores historical statues in the U.S. and how the American public accesses educational history through monuments like the Statue of Liberty and the Lieutenant General George Washington statue in Washington, D.C.

“in the clearing.” is on display until Feb. 7 at the Community Folk Art Center on East Genesee Street.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this post, the duration of the exhibition was misstated. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on January 27, 2019 at 9:11 pm