The following is a conversation between Monika Samtani, co-founder, The Fem Word; Kamryn Testa, Contributor, The Fem Word; and Leslie Lee, Founder, Soul Box Project

Soul Box Project - Photo Credit: Leslie Lee — Soul Box Project - *Photo Credit: Leslie Lee*

Monika Samtani:

Hello everyone. I'm Monika Samtani and this is The Fem Word. I'm joined by our contributor, Kamryn Testa.

Today we are excited to speak with Leslie Lee, founder of the Soul Box Project, which collects and exhibits thousands of hand folded origami boxes to raise awareness of the U.S. gunfire epidemic. Each soul box represents one victim. Welcome, Leslie. Thank you so much for being with us!

Leslie Lee:

Thank you for your interest in the project. I appreciate it.

Monika:

So the Soul Box Project is basically art revealing the gunfire epidemic. Can you explain to us what that means, Leslie?

Leslie:

Yeah, I can. What happened for me with this project was after the Las Vegas shooting, which was so huge, I realized that I had turned away from it. We have a tendency to turn away from horrible things and I thought if we all turn away from this, it's never going to change. As an artist, I realized that one of the things that was missing about this huge conversation that's been going on for decades in the U.S and not really getting anywhere is a visual, something that actually showed the numbers. So, I just thought, we could represent these numbers. We could ask people to make origami boxes like this. Each one of them representing a victim, somebody who's been killed or injured, and we could pile them up in public places so that people could start actually seeing how many thousands there actually are. So, I put up a website as one does and it's just taken off. Here we are two years later with 111,000 boxes that have come in from all over the country, made by people, who care about people, who care about this issue. They've made them for their friends and relatives and for people that they'll never know. We have blank ones that don't have any names on them but have comments and messages of different kinds that are made for people whose names we'll never know.

I mean, 60% of the people who are killed by gunfire are suicides and we don't get those names in the news. We don't really know that this is going on. That's one of the things that this visual is trying to bring forth is the whole picture.

Monika:

There is a healing that occurs with art. How did you choose origami? I know it's relatively low budget and that it's easily accessible. Is that why you chose this form of art?

Leslie:

Well originally, these things pop into your head in the middle of the night. Somebody had showed us how to make these little boxes at one point and when this idea came to me that we needed a visual. I thought, okay, we need something small because there are thousands of victims and we need something lightweight so that we can ship them. We need something that anybody can make, from a little child to a senior. So, this origami box came to my mind and then it was a very short leap from that origami box to Soul Box. Each one of these was going to represent and hold space for all these tortured souls. So, it has the practicality, but it also has this wonderful healing ability because when people fold these boxes, especially if they fold a number of them in sequence, it becomes a very meditative and calming thing to do, which is exactly what we all need right now. We needed it before the pandemic and we need it even more now. We're home and looking for meaningful things to do and this epidemic of gun violence and gunfire deaths is escalating within the pandemic. So this is a really good thing to be keeping our eye on.

Kamryn:

So I also noticed that there are all those boxes behind you in your studio. Could you tell us about the materials and process to make one?

Leslie:

Sure. Well, what you end up with is a little box like this and all it takes is literally two pieces of paper. Two, eight and a half by eight and a half pieces of paper. And this is from a calendar, so it doesn't have to be anything special. I mean, look at some of these. I'll give you a close-up of what's behind me. There are names here, messages, images of love and protest, and collaging with words. They're all so unique. I love this one because it says "stay safe, be well", which is what everybody is saying to everybody right now. It's that exact phrase, but this was made long before we ever knew what COVID was. It's also important to realize that boxes that are absolutely plain like this or just have something very simple on them are the ones that hold the spaces for those 60% that we're trying to represent.

Monika:

I love that this is such a visual and healing activity. It must be such an emotional process when you're working with people who have been affected by gun violence. Tell us about the reaction they have when making these origami boxes.

Leslie:

I have to say that as someone who doesn't know anybody who's been killed by a gun, this didn't come from a personal place for me. It came more from a place of an artist who wanted to say something, but not having worked with victims or survivors, I had no idea how powerful this project was going to be. It's really astounding and I feel very honored that we can offer something that is really meaningful to people.

A classic example, and this is on the front page of our new website, is when we share a story of a father whose son died by suicide and he was describing how he had gone to therapies, religious leaders, lawyers, and all these different kinds of things, but nothing was resonating with him at all to help with his pain. However, he found about out about the Soul Box Project when he went to a suicide walk and there were a bunch of people at the walk who were carrying backpacks with soul boxes in them, saying that "I'm carrying a hundred boxes on my back and 60 of them are suicides". He saw this and it kind of clicked. So, he contacted us and came to our workshop and we showed him around, and finally got him to sit down and make a box himself, in which he was very reluctant to do. But in the end, he said, "I was so resistant and when I did my brain disconnected from my pain, I concentrated on making the box and the answer was right there.” It was so beautiful. That sounds so simplistic, but it's so powerful and that's what art is all about. That's what art does. As a project, we really have to keep our eyes focused on this.

Monika:

You have a plan to go the National Mall with the Soul Box Project. What did you hope to achieve there?

Leslie:

Well, you know how our plans are not the greatest right now, but we are scheduled to be on the National Mall the 16th and 17th of October. What we had envisioned doing there, and we will do this even if it gets postponed to a later date, is to have a canopy that spans the width of the mall and these panels that you can see back here, there'll be 365 of them. Each panel is 98 boxes, which is approximately the number of people who are killed every day in the USA by gunfire. So, the 365 would be a whole year's worth and it will end up being about 800 linear feet that people can walk down one aisle and see these and then walk up another one. In addition to that, there's thousands and thousands of others that we carry in large see-through bags and these are used in procession. We've done this before at the Oregon state Capitol. It was extremely effective. I had over a hundred volunteers at that event that carried in these big bags. See, my voice gets a little shaky. I mean I start thinking about it and go, "Oh my gosh", and then when I think of how this could be on the National Mall with 400 people carrying these things in procession with several drummers actually doing a funeral beat to bring these bags in and line them up along the walkways around the canopy where the panels are. So the panels are the visual that allow you to get up close and actually get face to face with these little pieces of art that people have made. However, the bags show the huge numbers. So, when you walk up to this thing, there will be some signs that say, okay, this amount of bags is for the mass shootings and people are going to be pretty surprised to fine that that's quite a small batch. Then the next batch represents the kids that are under the age of 12 that have been killed and the next batches are the teenagers. However, the biggest batch of course is going to be the suicides and that kind of visceral experience is what compels people to take action and realize that they can do something about this. It will bring up the thoughts that as an individual, maybe I can think about the fact that my guns aren't locked up and I can talk to my kids about the futility of retribution, or write my legislator and make a soul box myself. We also always allow people at every exhibit to make a soul box, which is awesome.

Kamryn:

How did you get noticed and pick up steam with the project?

Leslie:

For me the tipping point was the Las Vegas shooting, so that was in October of 2017 and my husband is an artist as well. I'm a painter and a sculptor, maybe someday I will be again. So, we were about to have an open studio that Portland does every year and it was coming up in 10 days and I thought this would be a great place to introduce this idea that I have about making these boxes. So, in those 10 days, I put up a website, got a PO box, opened a bank account, printed up some stuff, and was ready when people came in the door. So that was where it was very first introduced, to the people who were coming to see my husbands and my artwork, and like anything, it's just a trickle and the word of mouth is very important. There are always some people who find out about these things and just latch onto them. I mean we have some people who have made literally thousands of boxes and that is so supportive to the project, but when we get just one that comes in our PO box, that just has stamps on it, I know that that one has been made for somebody who knew that person and it just is so moving. So there's a balance here between the minimal but impactful participation and also the people who just jump in.

It's just a been a matter of publicity. We've had several big exhibits that we've been able to video and put out there, but right now, we can't exhibit what we're doing, which is how the virtual part of this working during this time when we're all supposed to be staying home. So it's interesting. I'm not sure that we would have gone this direction without this happening and so it's one of those COVID silver linings that we have to acknowledge, but because we're having virtual foldings twice a week, people can come. They can find out about us on our newsletter or on our website, Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram and join in on these public sessions. We're literally folding boxes on these sessions, but we're also answering questions and having important conversations about the whole thing, and the treat of it is that before people were getting together with their church congregation, or their book clubs, and people they knew. Now, we're sitting down at the virtual table with literally people from all over the country. So, we're getting a much richer thing going. Early on, I mentioned that we're working on a new website and it will contain, a virtual exhibit that you can go to and scroll through all of these boxes that we are intending to do in the exhibit.

Monika:

I think it's worth going back to the whole reason why this started in the first place because we looked up some of the gun violence stats through your website and you're quoted as saying that "there are over 65,000 people killed or injured by bullets every year." I know that not only is this emotional healing, but there's some impact work that you're trying to do. What is the ultimate goal of Soul Box Project and how does the project prompt action? Not only to understand the magnitude of the gunfire problem, but to actually facilitate change.

Leslie:

Excellent question. So yes, our intention here is to be the voice that's not partisan or political, just the voice that reaches people on an emotional level where they can personally experience the collective grief around this whole issue because it doesn't really matter where you are on the political spectrum. Grief is grief, if you've been affected this way. It's the same for everybody. It's tragic and for the majority of us who haven’t experienced that kind of grief of actually losing somebody to gun violence, we need to know how that's working for other people.

So, by looking at this Soul Box Project what we're hoping will happen is that people will respond on an individual basis. They're not waiting for legislation to come along and fix everything because in the end it's that personal responsibility. I mean, if you own a gun, you have a responsibility to be careful with it. This project has nothing to do with taking away guns. Most people who are against this kind of thing or thinking, think that everybody's going to come and take away their guns. That's not where we're talking about. What we're talking about is realizing that every single gun is potential for a death or injury. I liken it to the HIV virus and AIDS, you know, HIV is a potential for death from AIDS, but it doesn't have to be. Condoms were very effective in helping to stop the spread of HIV and deaths from AIDS. I mean, gunlocks could do the same thing here.

The fact that since the COVID pandemic hit, there's been record sales in gun purchases. So, there are that many more guns out there and that many more pieces of potential for death or injury, and a lot of them are by people who have never owned a gun before. I hope that they're taking a safety class and that seeing something like this will make them realize the threat of these devices. Especially when you get into these boxes and you start reading through the ones for all the little children who have been killed or injured.

Monika:

Leslie, through all of this work and the impact that you're having on the people involved in the project, describe a moment that you felt powerful.

Leslie:

The first thing that comes to my mind is the father that I mentioned earlier, sitting with Andrew, who I knew was in so much pain over the loss of his son. You know, here's this big manly man, sitting across from me with tears in his eyes and telling me that all these other things didn't work and that it was me, the artist, that finally reached him and gave him a way to process his grief.

Kamryn:

I have chills.

Leslie:

Yeah. I just gave myself goosebumps. So, you know, every time somebody thanks me like that, I always say, "thank you. I had the idea, but this would never be where it is without the hundreds and hundreds of people who are involved in making this happen and bringing it to the light."

Monika:

How can people find and support you.

Leslie:

They can go to soulboxproject.org and on social media we have Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram and it's @soulboxproject. If you go to our website and sign up for our newsletters, we try to get something out every third week maybe about what's going on. It's very inspiring and we tell stories and show the things that people are doing and keep people interested. So like I say, now people are coming in from all over the country and joining in on these virtual sessions so that's pretty exciting.

Monika:

Thank you so much for your work. We really loved speaking with you today about the Soul Box Project and keep us posted, especially on the project that's coming up in D.C. We'd love to hear more about it closer to the date because I know it will happen at some point even if it's not in the fall.

Leslie:

Thank you.

Monika:

Find us at thefemword.world or on social media @thefemword.

Leslie Lee, Founder, Soul Box Project | Portland, Oregon