Art opens our eyes

When everything else seems to have failed, it is usually with art that we are able to garner attention, as we've seen with the flag memorial this week, installed on the campus of Southern Oregon University.

In the way we live today, statistics are nothing but numbers, even when those figures represent dead bodies. The majority of us have never seen a dead body. We don't worry about routine bombs being dropped when sending our kids off to school, and I'm willing to bet that many of us have never experienced running from our homes into open gun fire after a military raid looking for "insurgents" in our communities. Iraqi citizens may experience these things on a regular basis. The Iraqi Body Count Exhibit, (www.IraqBodyCountExhibit.org) suddenly allows us a visual scale to what was once merely an unidentifiable number. We are a population fixated on all things visual as more and more of us become consumed in media and its special effects. By attaching visibility to the Iraqi body count, the mass proportion of what has happened becomes much more clear.

"I appreciate it," said James Larson, a freshman on campus. "It is a good reminder of what's happened. It is powerful when you walk through it. I had no idea. The flags make much more of an impact than just some numbers you read. It is a way to visually experience tragedy, a vivid reminder of something we often forget."

Out of 208 votes on the Daily Tidings Web site's, "What do you think of the SOU exhibition on Iraq war casualties?" poll, 64.4 percent found it "Moving, disturbing, and thought provoking," while 18.3 percent found it to be "Just another protest in a sea of protests." We've all been touched.

Art has always been a way to express one's view of current issues, and the issue of war is no different. All across the world, exhibitions and installations dealing with war are springing up. Perhaps art is more effective in showing the truth of a subject thickened with lies and deceit.

"Dreams and Nightmares," a creative film, is a memorial to Iraqis who have lost their lives in the war. It includes photographs and personal stories and conveys the unseen side of the war in Iraq, the tragedy being experienced by everyday Iraqis.

The Institute of Contemporary Arts recently invited 26 artists from around the world to make proposals for a memorial to the Iraq War. These memorials address topics such as the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the country's slide into civil war, the deaths of soldiers and civilians and the conflict's relation to global jihadism and the War on Terror. Instead of trying to find a single memorial to a war, the exhibition explores different views of the Iraq War and different perspectives on what can or should be memorialized. "Consuming War," at the Hyde Park Art Center in Chicago, Ill., was an exhibition focusing on the U.S. conflict in the Middle East over the past 10 years. The show addressed the ways the American media and consumer culture have manipulated and influenced our perceptions of war, often turning it into a spectacle for American consumption.

In February 2003, hundreds of thousands of English Residents took to the streets to voice their opposition of military action in Iraq. Police reported it was the UK's biggest ever demonstration with at least 750,000 taking part, although organizers put the figure closer to 2 million. Millions of people protested in approximately 800 cities around the world. This was organized by the British Stop the War Coalition.

Filmmaker Mark Brecke, who visited SOU earlier this winter, brought with him stunning views of war, skeletons of those displaced in Darfur and mounds of burning bodies comparable to The Holocaust. We have frequent guests and even students on campus constantly trying to make a difference. The flag memorial has really touched people deeply, and for that we should all be appreciative, especially in a world where so many of us have become numb to such things as a "body count." When nothing else seems to be reaching people, art, exhibitions and installations can create an environment hard for us to ignore.