“20 Chairs,” an evocative new art installation created in collaboration between The DOVE Project and local artist West McLean, is now on view through mid-August in an overgrown swatch of the field located on the south side of the DOVE Project’s office, at 17311 Vashon Hwy SW.

The art project, said DOVE Project program director Tracy McLaren, is meant to raise awareness of startling statistics showing the scope and immediacy of intimate and partner violence at national, state, and local levels. These statistics include one cited by the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence: Every minute, 20 people in the United States are victims of domestic violence.

Put another way, this means that every three seconds, someone in the U.S. is abused by an intimate partner.

“Each chair is someone,” said McLaren, in an email. “Each chair, from a dining room, den, living room, kitchen, back porch, or garage, is someone in a nearby home, who needs our help.”

But according to McLaren, the site of the installation — an overlooked field in the center of Vashon, filled with tall grass and other overgrown weeds — is also symbolic.

“But as the field overtakes each chair, so do the minutiae of our lives overtake the startling realities of domestic violence,” she said. “Victims are lost, forgotten, or simply not seen.”

The artist behind the installation, West McLean, is known on Vashon for his work on social justice themes. Perhaps most notably, in 2020, McLean created a series of portraits of Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC) who have been killed by police, some of which still prominently hang in public places on Vashon.

Other examples of McLean’s work on Vashon — made with his frequent collaborator Jessica DeWire, who also contributed to the “20 Chairs” projects — are tucked away in unexpected places on Vashon.

These include a recent portrait of late islander Teo Nguyen, now on view close to the back doorway of Pop Pop Bottle Shop. Nguyen, an unhoused islander known to many on Vashon, died in his car during a bitter cold snap in January, at the age of 69. His death took place not far from where McLean’s portrait of him now hangs.

West and DeWire have also created other public art including a Juneteeth painting that now hangs at the Village Green, and portraits of Civil Rights leaders hung at Vashon Center for the Arts.

For “20 Chairs,” DeWire helped McLean create a wall of interactive graphics highlighting other domestic violence statistics, which were added daily — along with chairs placed one by one in the field — to the installation as it went up between July 1-20.

The “20 Chairs” public art installation was created by West McLean and his longtime collaborator, Jessica DeWire. (West McLean photo)