OUR INITIATIVES / PERMANENT ARCHIVE
Change The Ref turns grief into creative action — using art, technology, culture, voting, storytelling, and public pressure to challenge gun violence and the systems that allow it to continue.
CREATE
DISRUPT
REMEMBER
ACT
BUILT TO LAST
Microsites, partner domains, and one-off project URLs do not always stay online forever. This hub is the permanent source of truth for Change The Ref initiatives. When an original project site is still active, we can link to it. When it is not, the initiative remains fully documented here.
ALL INITIATIVES
From postcards and murals to AI, theatre, corporate accountability, and podcasting — each initiative uses a different medium to create pressure, preserve memory, and move people toward action.
Guac's Going On? is a short-form podcast from Change The Ref that uses AI to recreate Joaquin Oliver's voice, under his family's direction, for direct conversations about culture, power, public safety, politics, creativity, and gun violence.
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Written and performed by Manuel Oliver, GUAC is a fearless, funny, deeply personal solo theatrical work about a father, a son, a family, and the decision to turn loss into a relentless force for change.
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Shame Cards subverted the familiar American tourism postcard. Instead of celebrating landmarks, the illustrated cards confronted communities and lawmakers with the mass shootings that had become attached to city names across the country.
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Unfinished Votes used AI technology to digitally bring Joaquin Oliver into the 2020 election conversation and ask eligible voters to cast the votes that victims of gun violence never had the chance to make.
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The Corporate Mark Project helped turn gun safety into a standard businesses could publicly stand behind. The mark was created as part of the broader Business Must Act effort to recognize companies taking meaningful steps to reduce gun violence and pressure others to do more.
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Museum of Incomplete transforms personal objects, works in progress, and unfinished dreams into evidence of what gun violence removes from families and communities.
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Walls of Demand is Change The Ref's nationwide public-art activation: live murals and participatory installations that turn walls into visible demands for an end to gun violence.
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#Posts Into Letters transformed online reactions to gun violence into physical handwritten letters to lawmakers, using a typeface created from Joaquin Oliver's own handwriting.
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