produced
by the
Chicago Tribune and Pete Souza
_______________
This memorial began as a way to grasp
the reports
of the conflict in Iraq—I
wanted to try and understand what the casualties I heard about
meant in more human terms, to read about and see the
individual men and women who had lost their lives. My hope in
creating the piece is to show the cumulative effect of so many
lives lost, yet still reflect their individuality. I think it
is important to see the faces of the dead so they
can be respected and remembered.
As the installation developed, I
realized I wanted to show the Iraqis as well as the US
soldiers, to present a more complete picture. I struggled with
the best way to do this, since I could find so little
information about them. Using blank sheets of paper seemed
better than not representing them at all; the blankness also
seemed poignantly expressive of their anonymity
here.