The works that feature in the Platform show depict both victims and perpetrators of mass shootings. The cases of such shootings in America are now so numerous they bleed into one statistical mass, these works attempt to imbue past events with a renewed sense of reality. In honing in on individual cases, Hagler is asking the viewer to really contemplate what these tragedies mean, not just for those personally affected, but for humanity on a wider scale. These works are attempts to bridge an insurmountable temporal and epistemological gap - one can never fully understand, just as one can never return to life, however Hagler’s practice is concerned with partial possibilities. The artist, standing in liminal space, can look both backwards and forwards with a sense of discovery, ultimately producing work with a certain poignancy, work with a didactic quality. 

The paintings were installed in an abandoned school in New Mexico. This pervasive feeling of isolation chimes with Hagler who has always been interested in places of loss; it is a mnemonic environment that instills a kind of fraternal solace in the artist.