My 8 Days As a War Artist (2018)
The interactive project, “My 8 days as a War Artist” is the result of a brief trip to Afghanistan in September 2010. I applied to become a “war artist” embedded with the Canadian Forces. My proposal was to observe war through a lens of domestic chores such as cooking and cleaning. Through these household tasks, I hoped to find some common understanding or mechanism for comprehending the contemporary landscape of war. In 2010, Op ATHENA which began in January 2006, was winding down and Canada was making plans to withdraw troops from the country. It was a once in a lifetime experience, one that was riddled with road blocks, military hierarchy, and the limitations of video documentation. I worked on this project on and off for seven years, trying to make some sense of the seemingly random material I had shot. The result is a multi-layered narrative based on memory, the unknown and the imagined.
Although the project can be navigated through these three main themes, the experience is determined by the user. The entire project takes approximately 30 minutes to go through one complete pass. I’ve also posted a daily diary of my time there.
THIS PROJECT MUST BE VIEWED THROUGH THE FIREFOX BROWSER WITH THE FLASH PLUG-IN.