Amy Khoshbin: Opposite of a Weapon Coloring Book

Produced in conjunction with the 2019 PES Summer Story Lab & Artist in Residence Program.

NEARLY 40,000 PEOPLE DIE FROM GUN VIOLENCE PER YEAR. Meanwhile, the imagery of guns, weapons, and violent acts pervade our media, socio-cultural psyche, and our bodies. In the recent wake of innumerable mass shootings, cases of police brutality, and the violent killings of queer folks and POC in America, artist Amy Khoshbin asks the question “WHAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF A WEAPON?” How can we shift our culture towards an iconography and dialogue of disarmament and non-violence? 

Khoshbin set forth to determine how we might have a conversation with people with whom we might not necessarily agree. Answers have manifested into an ongoing body of work called The Opposite of a Weapon, consisting of drawings, screenprints, and sculptures encouraging the public, specifically children, to start thinking about a culture of non-violence and disarmament. 

This coloring book asks you to consider this assertion; to spend time with the objects and ideas that are the Opposite of a Weapon. 

About Amy Khoshbin
Amy Khoshbin is an Iranian-American Brooklyn-based artist, rapper, and politician. Her practice advocates for changing commercial culture by using popular media genres to create connections and catharsis. She has shown at venues such as The Whitney Museum of American Art,  The Guggenheim Museum, Times Square Arts, The High Line, Socrates Sculpture Park, VOLTA Art Fair, PULSE Art Fair, Leila Heller Gallery, Mana Contemporary, National Sawdust, and festivals such as River to River and South by Southwest. She has received residencies at spaces such as The Watermill Center, Lower Manhattan Cultural Council, Anderson Ranch, and Banff Centre for the Arts.  She is a 2017 Franklin Furnace recipient and has received a Rema Hort Mann Artist Community Engagement Grant. Khoshbin has bachelor's degrees in Film and Media Studies from the University of Texas at Austin and a master's degree from the Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) at New York University. She has collaborated with Laurie Anderson, Karen Finley, Tina Barney, and poets Anne Carson and Bob Currie among others.