Artist Rebuilds Columbine's Cafeteria In A Sobering Take On Gun Violence

TitleArtist Rebuilds Columbine's Cafeteria In A Sobering Take On Gun Violence
Publication TypeJournal Article
Year of Publication2016
AuthorsOrganization Huffington Post
ISSN2374-1406
Abstract

On April 20, 1999, students Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot and killed 13 people before taking their own lives and injuring 24 other people at Columbine High School in Colorado. Images from the massacre flooded media outlets soon after, leaving images of blood-stained library corridors and grainy yearbook photos engrained in the nation's collective memory. Images from the massacre flooded media outlets soon after, leaving images of blood-stained library corridors and grainy yearbook photos engrained in the nation's collective memory.Was the atrocity a freakish deviation from the norm or a standard consequence of a culture that submits to gun violence?However, rather than rebuild the library exactly as it appeared in newspaper pages and police photos, Rogers transformed the grim scene into a cartoonish, nostalgic otherworld, where cult characters from Rogers' youth relived Columbine's grisly events.The cartoon characters, Joan of Arc of "Clone High" and Gaz of "Invader Zim," served as female stand-ins for Dylan and Eric.In "Columbine Cafeteria," various items from the lunchroom are replicated in exact detail in the brightly lit space, juxtaposed with fantastical elements that fuse history and imagination as memory tends to do.Playful from one angle, sinister and bizarre from another, the seating arrangement shows the power of banal objects to morph into loaded symbols before your eyes.Mandy, also a character from the TV show "Clone High," becomes friends with…