The “Fearless Girl” transforms into “Fearful Girl”, in a demonstration of protest against gun violence on Friday, ahead of the U.S. Midterm Elections.
Change The Ref (CTR), an organization using urban art to promote gun reform, posted a picture of the Fearless girl wearing a bulletproof vest on Twitter, with the caption “She can’t be fearless if she’s afraid to go to school.”
Founders of CTR, Manuel and Patricia Oliver, are the parents of Joaquin Oliver, who was killed in the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. They put the bulletproof vest on the statue, which stayed for an hour before the police came, calling on stricter gun control laws, and the accountability of politicians and lawmakers.
Fearless Girl first stood on International Women’s Day in 2017 facing off against the famous Wall Street Charging Bull. McCann New York was behind this project for client State Street Global Advisors. The statue, made by artist Kristen Visbal, depicts female strength. It became iconic and won numerous awards, including 4 Grand Prix and 18 Lions at the Cannes Lion International Festival of Creativity in 2017, among others.
To recontextualize this iconic figure, Change the Ref partnered with Fight Gunfire With Fire (FGWF). This creative force was founded earlier this year by MullenLowe and The One Club for Creativity, to take thought-provoking creative ideas into impactful crafts and media and inspire students to curb gun violence. This has been a central issue over the recent years with massive shootings in schools taking the lives of innocent students.
Nearly 1,300 kids are killed each year, based on a report of Pediatrics in 2017. On an average day, more than 90 Americans are killed with firearms, according to CDC/National Center for Health Statistics.
Before the “Fearful Girl”,Change the Ref teamed up with Stop Handgun Violence and came up with a new billboard, designed to compare the effective gun laws in Massachusetts with the lax gun measures in Florida.
