Unspoken Resilience Art Show, University of New England, Portland,Maine
“Unspoken Resilience: Healing from the Lewiston Shooting Two Years In” at University of New England Art Gallery.
“Unspoken Resilience,” a multi-disciplinary exhibition, September 2025 through February 2026, assembled works of the Deaf community and its friends in the aftermath of the horrific 2023 mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine. The exhibition expressed its need to mourn, to console and to demand changes in the treatment of a population with recognizably distinct interpretive needs.
“Unspoken Resilience” was co-curated by Michelle Ames, a Deaf artist and co-director of Deaf services at Disability Rights Maine, and Meryl Troop, a multidisciplinary fiber artist and certified ASL interpreter. The exhibition documented the Deaf community’s experience and response and liberates the voices of many touched by the tragedy.” Poster credited by the art gallery.
Nancy Rourke’s painting, Reclaiming Cornhole aka Guernica explained the Four Deaf men are joyfully playing cornhole. One lies down—Joshua Seal—holding Clayton Valli’s dandelion as a symbol of resilience and Deaf poetry. Another, Bryan MacFarlane, a truck driver, handwaves in celebration of winning the cornhole game. Above them, two Deaf men, Stephen Vozzella and Billy Brackett, look down from heaven, cheering them on.
A glowing lightbulb overhead forms the handshape for 21 points—the winning score in cornhole, and a sign of victory. Nearby, two Deaf searchers open a door, representing the quest for lost knowledge. One carries a lantern, illuminating the Deaf community’s ongoing pursuit of what has been hidden, withheld, or misrepresented.
Around two heads, strips of blue tape act as blindfolds, signifying being left uninformed or unaware. Inside the space, wooden floors and wall pendants frame the scene. Another Deaf figure enters, holding an invisible mobile phone—its absence symbolizing the lack of access to information.
