Sometimes at ArtPrize the medium is the message.

Jenna Blazevich's "The City Beautiful" uses 27,000 .22 bullet casings to send her message about Chicago loud and clear.

Blazevich is based in Chicago where she uses handcraft work to combine art and design. Her entry into ArtPrize Eight addresses the nation's City Beautiful Movement from the late 1800s and early 1900s. The movement focused on beauty and architecture in cities. Chicago's "Plan of Chicago" was part of that movement.

Opponents argue that the movement made aesthetics more important than social reform.

Blazevich says her piece "is influenced by neoclassicism and seeks to display ornament, grandeur and harmony." She uses bullet casings because of Chicago's "significant gun violence caused in part by widening socioeconomic disparity."

The Chicago Tribune says August 2016 was the most violent month in Chicago in 20 years. 400 people were shot and there were at least 78 homicides.

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