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A Harrowing Installation Pays Tribute to the Lives Lost in Orlando

West Hollywood artist ChadMichael Morrisette skipped Pride to create a haunting tribute to the victims.
Images courtesy of the artist

Fifty naked and disfigured mannequins lie on the roof of a West Hollywood home. Passersby raise their fists in solidarity. As the artist behind the project, ChadMichael Morrisette, tells The Creators Project, “You can see the heartache in their faces.” Next to the bodies is a sign which reads “50 DEAD PEOPLE #GUNCONTROL.”

The art installation, called No One is Safe, is a harrowing response to the shooting that occured at Orlando's Pulse nightclub on Sunday. This was Morrisette’s 36th birthday—he awoke to the news. Sobbing alone in his bed, the artist tells us, he felt too devastated and angry to celebrate either his birthday or Pride. Instead, he decided that he had to express himself. “I do that by creating,” he explains. He then began arranging the 50 mannequins on his roof—the total number dead, including the shooter—a process that took hours. The most striking part of the installation, for Morrisette, is the sheer amount of space the mannequins take up. “Stepping over bodies… leaves you speechless,” he explains. The pure physicality of the installation is devastating to witness.

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While the Orlando shooting did feel personal to Morrisette as a gay man, No One is Safe was not intended to reflect the LGBT community specifically. Instead, he wanted to simply show “50 human bodies.” And, it was important to Morrisette that these mannequins were different from one another, in order to represent “the individuality involved.”

A woman stands on her car to photograph the installation

Morrissette says that No One is Safe is finished for now, but that if the death toll rises, he will continue to add mannequins.

You can follow ChadMichael Morrisette on Instagram here.

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