HALLOWELL — The Harlow Gallery and the Family Violence Project will host the Maine Silent Witness Project for three days Thursday-Saturday, Sept. 24-26, leading into October’s exhibition, “It Takes a Community: Transforming Violence II.”

The Silent Witness Project is a national initiative that honors those who have been killed in acts of domestic abuse. Community members are invited to come to the Harlow Gallery on any of the three workshop dates to participate in creating Silent Witness figures to promote awareness about ending domestic abuse, according to a news release from the gallery.

The Maine Silent Witness Project, led by Susan Fuller and Wayland Linscott, maintains a traveling exhibit of life-size, red, wooden silhouettes of women, each with a golden shield upon her chest with her name and story. Here in Maine, these silhouettes representing victims of domestic abuse have been a focal point of domestic abuse education since 1994. Folks work together to create the exhibit that will stay within their community and be used for educating and raising awareness about domestic abuse. But it’s the conversations over the wood and paint — often with surviving family members — where the healing begins.

Come to Harlow Gallery at 160 Water St., on any or all of the following dates: 4 to 7 p.m. Sept. 24-25 and 9 a.m. to noon Sept. 26. Wear clothing appropriate for messy work (painting, sanding etc.). People can spend as much or as little time as they wish. Participation is free and everyone is welcome.

Fuller has coordinated the Maine Silent Witness Project since its inception in 1995, helping Maine to be the 24th state to come on board the National Silent Witness Initiative, according to the release. She has worked in the field of domestic abuse as a speaker, trainer and domestic abuse advocate since 199. She currently coordinates Maine’s Domestic Abuse Homicide Review Panel.

Linscott was first drawn into the field of Advocacy for Women and grassroots education around Domestic Violence when he helped to create the original figures of New Hampshire’s Silent Witness Project in 1994 and then Maine’s original exhibit in 1995, according to the release. She serves as the assistant coordinator for the Maine Silent Witness Project. Linscott is a former co-facilitator for Alternatives to Abuse, the Batterer’s Intervention Program affiliated with Safe Voices in Lewiston, and was a member of the Androscoggin Domestic Violence Task Force. In addition, a particular interest has been organizing men to recognize their role and responsibility in ending Domestic Violence.

For more information, visit Family Violence Project at familyviolenceproject.org; Silent Witness National Initiative at silentwitness.net. For details about this exhibition, visit harlowgallery.org or calll the gallery at 622-3813.

“It Takes a Community: Transforming Violence II” and related events are funded in part by a grant from the Maine Arts Commission, an independent state agency supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, and by a grant from the Kay E. Dopp Fund of the Maine Community Foundation.

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