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"SERVICEMEN AND WOMEN..." AT LONDON'S SAATCHI GALLERY |
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By Andrew Jack LONDON, 8 MARCH 2010 — San Francisco-based Emily Prince's American Servicemen and Women Who Have Died in Iraq and Afghanistan (But Not Including the Wounded, Nor the Iraqis nor the Afghanis), currently showing at the Saatchi Gallery in London, is a striking attempt to portray the on-going burden of war visually. No great stylistic flourishes, just a simple idea writ large: a simple card of a standard size for each death from Iraq or Afghanistan, colour-coded for ethnic origin, illustrated with a hand-drawn reproduction of a photograph when available.
There is no explicit value judgement, just a simple and powerful indication of the human impact of conflict (http://www.theamericanservicemenandwomen.com/). Arranged chronologically (after previously in the form of a map), it gives an idea of the relative impact of the conflicts over time — highlighting the Iraqi "surge" and other flares in battle — and the particular impact on African-Americans and Hispanics and (more difficult to see at a glance) of women as well as men.
As she herself laments, the absence of anything as comprehensive as the U.S. log (www.militarytimes.com) for local victims of the wars, is the greatest omission: the burden is still greater for the Iraqis and Afghanis themselves. Headline image above: Emily Prince: Jason Morales, La
Puente, California Emily Prince: American Servicemen and Women Who Have Died in
Iraq and Afghanistan (But Not Including the Wounded, Nor the Iraqis nor
the Afghanis) Andrew Jack is a senior journalist at the Financial Times and the author of Inside Putin's Russia: Can There Be Reform Without Democracy? (Oxford University Press, USA, 2004, 2007). He is also a member of the editorial board of Culturekiosque.com and last wrote a film review of James Cameron’s Avatar.
BOOK TIP: chosen by the editors as being of interest to Culturekiosque readers.
Heart of War: Soldiers' Voices From the Front Lines in
Iraq Damon DiMarco has assembled an unflinching compilation — first person narratives of returning military personnel — that personalizes America’s involvement in Iraq in a manner all-too-rarely covered by mainstream media. Ignorance, political duplicity, corporate greed and corruption, incompetence, right-wing cynicism, marital infidelity, sexual abuse and the dishearteningly widespread indifference to the existential and medical needs of war veterans are among the issues documented here. Whether voiced by naïve farm kids, street smart city dwellers or the sons and daughters of America’s elite, the accounts of horrors, brutality and pathos are relentless and devastating. Antoine du Rocher External Link Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America Related Culturekiosque Archives Film Review: Afghan Star Tortures Taint: Waterboarding Sean Hannity for Charity Photojournalist Wins Photographer of the Year for Afghanistan Picture 'The Valley ' Brzezinski Spells it Out to Joe Scarborough Afghan Treasures Saved from the Taliban, but not Quite Ready for America British Museum's Hadrian Exhibition: Empire Repeats Itself War in Iraq: The Coordinates of Conflict-Photographs by VII U. S. Concludes Investigation of Looting of the Iraqi National Museum in Baghdad 5,000-Year-Old Statue of Lioness Sells for $57.1 Million Guantanamo Prison Inspires Nacho Duato and The Compania Nacional de Danza | |
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