Toll the Bell 2025: A City-Wide Call to Remember

Last week, Penn Live Arts hosted Toll the Bell 2025, a powerful city‑wide sound installation and interfaith vigil aimed at drawing awareness to the ongoing epidemic of gun violence in Philadelphia and across the nation. On National Gun Violence Awareness Day at 1 PM, bells tolled across more than 40 locations, accompanied by a reflective walk from the Annenberg Center to the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral and an interfaith service fostering communal pause and remembrance.

Souls Shot Portrait Project was honored to participate in this deeply moving event. Earlier in the month, we installed The Collection—a poignant display of 15 portraits—throughout the Cathedral’s space. During the event itself, our team hosted a table there, engaging attendees with our mission and stories behind each portrait.

We are deeply grateful to Penn Live Arts, the Philadelphia Episcopal Cathedral, and all their collaborators including Penn’s Office of the Chaplain, Interfaith Philadelphia, and faith-based partners for organizing such an impactful opportunity to honor the lives lost to gun violence. 

Toll the Bell was not merely a remembrance; it was a resounding call to action—and to reflect, mourn, collaborate, and strive for change.

Thank you to everyone who joined us and helped elevate this remembrance into a movement of hope and healing.

Community members taking their turn to ring the Cathedral bells, followed by a moving performance by Ruth Naomi Floyd of Echoes: Shattered Flesh and Breathless Souls, a commissioned work reflecting on the devastating impact of gun violence.