On Saturday, September 13, 2025, The Health Museum hosted InnerSections: Beyond the 77 Minutes, a special program designed to deepen public understanding of gun violence as a public health crisis and to conclude the six-month run of the 77 Minutes exhibition. The program brought together storytelling, art, film, and psychology to explore how school shootings and active shooter drills are affecting the emotional, physical, and developmental well-being of children, families, and educators.
About the Exhibition: 77 Minutes
77 Minutes is a photographic installation created by artist Sarah Sudhoff in collaboration with nonprofit organization Lives Robbed, established by families of victims of the Robb Elementary School shooting in Uvalde, Texas. The title references the length of time children and teachers waited inside the school before help arrived. Sudhoff’s work includes large-scale portraits of family members and highly symbolic photographs of the victims’ shoes — everyday objects elevated into artifacts of both memory and collective grief.
“I wanted to photograph them like a document, as if I was witnessing this artifact or evidence from the event.”
She intended to document and witness—not to sensationalize. The shoes were photographed individually “as if they were evidence,” and presented in minimalist pine frames, subtly referencing both the boxes families brought them in and the children’s absence. When the series was first viewed as a complete installation, families expressed seeing a depth of communal grief they had not fully realized until confronted with the work in its entirety.
About the Film: The Bad Guy
The program featured The Bad Guy, a 69-minute documentary film by journalist and filmmaker Louise Van Assche. The title emerged organically, as nearly every child and adult interviewed used the phrase when describing lockdown drills and their fears. As a mother and immigrant from Belgium — where such drills are not part of childhood — Van Assche began investigating the emotional and psychological effects of these drills on children, parents, and teachers.
Her film includes layered interviews and perspectives from students, parents, teachers, and medical professionals to document how fear becomes normalized, internalized, and sometimes invisible within school systems.
“Gun violence has definitely changed me, sometimes I feel so helpless and like there’s nothing I can do. But my way to deal with this is to make films or to make photo projects, so we can talk about it, write about it, to get to the root of it.”
Louise Van Assche
The Panel Conversation: When Art Meets Public Health
Following the film, moderator Rose Tylinski (Healing Arts Program Manager) led a panel discussion with Van Assche, Sudhoff, and trauma-informed psychologist Dr. Cristy Gamez. Together, they explored how documentary film and visual art can open access points for understanding trauma beyond statistics, headlines, and political polarization, especially for young people.
A central thread of the dialogue was how art and storytelling allow us to hold nuance rather than simplifying harm into “good versus bad.” Dr. Gamez emphasized that it is developmentally easier for the human brain to categorize, but healing requires acknowledging the full spectrum of emotion — fear, anger, guilt, tenderness, and resilience.
The panel also addressed how prolonged fear affects the nervous system, how trauma is stored in the body, and why communities must create trauma-informed environments to support children’s learning, safety, and sense of belonging. Dr. Gamez made a powerful note that, in the end, healing is possible for everyone.
A Closing Circle of Witnessing
What made this program especially meaningful was the participation of the audience. During the Q&A, guests shared personal stories of their own school lockdown drills, lived fear, and memories tied to mass school shootings across the nation. The vulnerability, honesty, and shared grief formed a powerful moment of community witness — a fitting closing chapter to the exhibition.
As the museum continues its Healing Arts initiatives, InnerSections: Beyond the 77 Minutes serves as a reminder that while art may not solve tragedy, it creates the spaces necessary to acknowledge it, feel it, speak it, and ultimately — begin to heal.
Continuing the Conversation – Family Resources
- Talking to Children About Violence: Tips for Families and Educators
- Helping Young Children with Traumatic Grief: Tips for Caregivers
- Helping School-Age Children with Traumatic Grief: Tips for Caregivers
- Helping Teens with Traumatic Grief: Tips for Caregivers
Restoring Safety
- Restoring a Sense of Safety in the Aftermath of a Shooting: Tips for Parents and Professionals
- Assisting Parents and Caregivers in Coping with Collective Traumas
- Creating, Supporting, and Sustaining Trauma-Informed Schools: A System Framework