ALTERNATIVE RULE
Matt Kenyon
Though it might look like the paper you use to learn penmanship, in Alternative Rule, the lines on the paper are made up of micro-printed names and dates of children who have been victims of gun violence since the Columbine High School shooting in 1999.
People of all ages are invited to take a sheet of paper and write a letter to members of government to advocate for gun control in America. Alternative Rule is a memorial and a protest tool, created for the activists of the next generation, many of whom are already organizing in their own schools and on the national level.
“As a student, I witnessed a shooting at Westdale, my public middle school in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was the late-1980s. I remember the announcement over the intercom to shelter in our classroom and our teacher in a hushed voice telling us to lay down on the floor. I remember the police with their guns and the subsequent shootout behind the school. Stray bullets punched neat little holes high up in the windows of the classroom. At the time, I struggled to make sense of that violence – just as we struggle today with why those in power allow such events to keep reoccurring, and how it might ever be possible to recover.
-Matt Kenyon from Another Voice: A unique letter-writing project and protest tool - Alternative Rule, published in The Buffalo Daily News on June 8, 2022
Alternative Rule was previously exhibited at: Wolf at the Door. Big Orbit, Buffalo, NY. Design + Diversity, Chicago, IL.