In an effort to combat the apathy of an American public inundated with bloodlust as entertainment and to foster a more collective empathy, American Homicide documents multipleperspectives; showing victims’ surviving family members—illustrating the silent aftermath, profound grief, and deep emotional scars that violence cuts into families. We then view the families of perpetrators—shifting focus to an almost entirely undocumented and unsupported group who have also lost someone to the act of homicide. Meanwhile, we’re shown those living with the relentless violence day in and day out on the job in the intense professional and personal realities of homicide detectives at work and home.
To bridge the divide between the general public and the realities of violent crime, Sharum, who grew up in an economically depressed area, with a suspicion of law enforcement, combines evocative photographs with over 60 interviews, questionnaires, and hand-written letters from perpetrators currently serving time and their families, victims’ families, and detectives alike.
'If I could reduce the lessons learned from taking on this body of work into one sentence, it would be this: When it comes to homicide, there is no such thing as justice. Following the death of George Floyd in 2020, there was an anti-law enforcement uprising across the United States and I too, with the nation, was disturbed by what happened on that Minnesota street. I too was also shaken by the breaking down of all pretense of pride and strength, when in the last struggle of Mr. Floyd’s life, he called for the comfort of his absent mother, precisely as a newborn fawn does before it is taken by a predator. There can be no doubt that what we witnessed that day, recorded live for all to see, was a homicide. Watching a grown man in his final moments be reduced to the innate desires of a child revealed a primal, universal fear that for me transcends any era of time or social division. Having documented people in extreme danger before, I recognized this ‘boiling down’ as a fundamental universal truth, the same sort of truth I have always aimed for in my work—moments of equalizing value or moments that transcend any attempts at external division. This is what gave me the initial idea of documenting law enforcement. Not because I admired them (quite the opposite), but because I wanted to know what the lay citizen didn’t know about their world and the stresses involved. I wasn’t content merely joining the national hate-parade going on at the time, so I set out to document as closely as possible the thing I was most wary about in this country—the police. I decided early on though that instead of photographing patrol cops, I wanted the most extreme version, one that is famously insular as a collected body and the hardest to get into—a homicide unit.'
Select works from American Homicide are currently featured as part of Sharum's solo exhibition, In the Shadow of the American Dream, which opened at the Stadthaus Ulm in Germany in June 2026 running through September 20, 2026.
The exhibition covers Sharum’s entire trilogy titled “Of Thee I Sing” which spans three books documenting the contemporary United States: Spina Americana (GOST, 2024), American Homicide (GOST, 2026), and American Avenue (scheduled for 2028 with GOST).
