Iraq Anniversary

Dropsofblood-1

Three years.

Lately, many of the Iraqi images you’ve sent me have emphasized blood — mostly blood in the streets, or blood on people’s hands. I tend to interpret this as a wish for finality — as if the presence of so much blood must represent some kind of end point. I found many of this weekend’s protest galleries visually unremarkable, but this caught my eye. This shot was taken in London’s Parliament Square. Each dot is meant to represent one drop of blood spilled in the war.

It seems to go on forever.

(image: Luke MacGregor/Reuters. March 19, 2006. wapo.com)

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11dvn

The rows of red remind me of the stripes on the US flag.
readytoblowagasket

This installation of 100,000 blood splatters, representing the Iraqi *civilians* killed in the war, is by antiwar artist David Gentleman. I haven’t been able to find much information about it yet. Maybe there will be more when the British bloggers get their posts up. But it certainly looks very affecting from here. . . .
http://comespeak2.blogspot.com/ dus7

Of course, it’s the kneeling figure in black that gives perspective to both size dimensions and human dimensions.
Mad_nVT

Very powerful. Looks like the coffins of dead soldiers that we don’t see, covered with the new American flag.
So many coffins of dead Iraqis and dead Americans that they are packed in tight.
So many coffins, so much blood, that the red recedes into the distance, and becomes gray with time.
Susan

http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/gallery?Site=B0&Date=20060320&Category=FRONTPAGE&ArtNo=320002&Ref=PH&Params=Itemnr=3
above is a link to the display our group made to commemorate Iraqi and American deaths in Iraq. We made 1,400 of those flags, although only a few show in the photo.
I saw a photo today of Cindy Sheehan speaking… she was fuzzy in the photo, and there was a huge puppet mask next to her in the photo, only it was sharp and clear. It was on the Chicago Tribute page.
ummabdulla

Simple but very powerful, and dus7 makes a good point about needing that person in there for perspective.
Hopefully it won’t “go on forever”…
Lightkeeper

It has already “gone on forever.”
Cactus

I waited to read some British blogs, but only found one reference (in passing) to this. Apparently it didn’t have a huge impact.
Flags was my first thought, too. It also reminds me of those little sticky circles in colors you buy in the stationary store. But I wonder if the dots/drops are perhaps too obscure of an image for such a display . . . for the passer-by to connect to it and be impacted. Another problem would be the hugeness of it all. Sometimes things are just so large as to be impossible to grasp and therefore easy to ignore or overlook. For instance, remember the first time you totally realized the meaning of the infinite universe?
However, as a photograph, it is effective, but only because of the black figure silhouette which could be praying or examining a gnat. Theoretically, a ‘drop of blood’ has an empathic meaning when we connect it to a war (or the war in Iraq). I just don’t see the impact on the pedestrians, if that was the purpose. Compare it to the photos you’ve seen of the empty boots. When you look at those boots, there is no doubt, immediately, that the person whose feet are not in those boots is dead. That’s an image that needs no explanation.