By Joshua Shafer 

Writer/Reporter 

Let me teach you something they don’t put in the active shooter drills. 

A .223 Remington round, the standard kiss of an AR-15, leaves the muzzle at 3,200 feet per second. That is faster than your brain can process the word run. When it enters a human body, it does not just poke a hole. It tumbles. It fragments. It creates a temporary cavity the size of a grapefruit inside a ribcage the size of a child’s backpack. The hydrostatic shock of the pressure wave can snap a spine without even touching it. And the sound? 165 decibels. That is louder than a jet engine at takeoff. That is loud enough to liquefy your inner ear and leave you bleeding from the canals before you even hit the floor. 

That is the physics of a country that has decided your life is worth less than a hobby. 

Now hold that image in your teeth. 

Because right next to that hell of ballistics data, there is a small, badly lit gallery in this city. And inside that gallery, something impossible happened. A group of artists donated their talent to an exhibit about children who have died in that never-ending cycle. Grown adults cannot figure out how to drop the ego, the power, the control. So, children die. And then artists pick up the pieces. 

I walked into that exhibit expecting to be sad. I walked out, changed. 

But here is the part I have not told you yet. 

The curators gave me time. 

Not a rushed glance. Not thanks for coming. They saw me standing alone in front of a sculpture made from melted bullet casings, and they asked me to speak with them and share my thoughts, as they pulled up chairs. They brought me water when my voice cracked. They told me about every crack in the drywall they patched themselves because the gallery had no budget. They told me about the sleepless nights before the opening, terrified that no one would come. They told me about the mother who collapsed in front of a painting of her own child’s sneakers, which they had found in a police evidence photo and recreated in charcoal. 

Those curators did not have to do that. They could have locked up and gone home. Instead, they sat with a stranger and let him weep. They said, “We do not know how to stop the bullets. But we know how to hold the space where grief becomes action.” 

That is holy. That is more punk rock than any AR-15. 

So here are the artists, every single one of them, whose fragments of broken hope are reassembled on those walls. Say their names like a prayer or a middle finger, whichever keeps you breathing. 

Katayoun Amjadi 
David Aschenbrener 
Pedram Baldari 
Queen Serena Black 
Juels Bowman 
Courtney Bradshaw 
Barbara Bridges 
Tina Burnside 
Christopheraaron Deanes 
Diana Eicher 
Kyle Fokken 
Kelly Frankenberg 
seangarrison 
Ruthann Godollei 
Jayden Goldsboro 
Teneka Graves 
Guillermo Guardia 
Christopher E. Harrison 
Heaven Hayden 
Karl Herber 
David Kamm 
Mike Klein 
Michele A. Lackey 
Laura Marie 
Flahn Manly 
Nikki McComb 
Noval Noir 
Rheasa Otto 
Maria Quinn 
Jennifer Schultz 
Brit Sigh 
Miko Simmons 
Crystal Sokuu 
Jennifer Higgs Stewart 
Michelle Thayer 
Lux Thunberg 
University of St. Thomas Justice and Peace Studies students 
Amy Wilderson 

Now let me return to ballistics, because I need you to understand the contrast. 

A .222 round, the less common but equally vicious cousin of the .223, is often used for varmint hunting. Small game. Rabbits. The same round has been pulled from the bodies of first graders. Think about that. The ammunition industry literally markets bullets for pests, and those same rounds are legal for anyone over 18 to buy at a sporting goods counter in most states. The cartridge casing brass usually ejects at ten feet per second, spinning end over end, landing on a classroom floor with a tiny ting that no movie ever gets right. That ting is the sound of your tax dollars funding a nightmare. 

But here is what the NRA will not tell you; the tumbling fragmentation of a .223 round is not the only thing that can rearrange your insides. 

So, can art. 

So can sititing in a free gallery for an hour, surrounded by people who refuse to look away. So can a curator pull up a chair and say, “Tell me what hurts. That fragmentation, the shattering of your apathy, creates a temporary cavity too. And inside that cavity, something new can grow. 

To every Metropolitan State student reading this: 

This exhibit is free. Free. No cost. No student ID required. No one checks your major or your GPA or whether you have been diagnosed with the same despair that is eating the rest of your generation. 

You can walk alone. You can stand in front of a painting of empty sneakers for twenty minutes, and no one will rush you. You can cry in the corner, and the curators will hand you a tissue and not say a word. You can bring a friend who has been talking about ending things, and maybe just maybe seeing that someone else turned their rage into a canvas will remind them that their hands are still capable of making something beautiful. 

The art community is not in a fancy museum behind a velvet rope. It is here. In this raw, underfunded, leaking-roof gallery. And it is available to you. At no cost. No cost to your wallet, and no cost to your soul except the willingness to feel something. 

The curators, whose names I am not printing because they would blush and tell you to praise the artists instead, gave me something I did not know I needed; permission to stop pretending the gunshots do not change everything. 

So here is my permission to you: 

Stay active. 
Go for a walk to that gallery. 
Put your phone down and look at something real. 
Talk to the person behind the table. They will talk back. They will listen. 

Stay alive. 
Even when the news cycle vomits another body count. 
Even when the adults keep failing. 
Even when the only sound in your head is that 165-decibel crack. 

You are not the bullet. 
You are the fragmentation of everything that comes after. 

The exhibit is still open. 
The curators are waiting with chairs and water and tired, hopeful eyes. 

Go. 

With a chest full of shrapnel and a pulse I almost lost, 
Someone who spent one hour crying and came out fighting. 

Fragments Reimagined runs through Aug. 8 at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.

2501 Stevens Avenue
Minneapolis, MN 55404

The MCAD Gallery hours:
Monday–Friday: 9:00 a.m.–7:00 p.m.
Saturday: 10:00 a.m.–4:00 p.m.

All visitors must buzz in and enter through the north (main) entrance, sign in at the welcome desk in the main lobby, and stay in designated gallery areas.