LIVING IN LIMBO: Artists Comment on U.S./Iraq Conflict

Our daily lives go on now against the backdrop of howling war talk from the Bush administration. The mood is tense; we're all in limbo. What shape do our apprehensions take, when they surface from beneath the facade of normal life? Stretcher posed the following question to several artists:

"How do you imagine your life will change if the United States attacks Iraq?

Kim Anno
Ray Beldner
Nathan Burazer
Cameron Cartiere
Ann Chamberlain
Margaret Crane
Ella Delaney
Jessica Dunne
Ian Green
Jim Heron
Lynn Hershman
Todd Hido
Carol Lemmon
Rigo
Allen Spore
Meredith Tromble
Mary Hull Webster


Kim Anno: My life is changed even by the threats, the thoughts, the aggression of my country around the world that has been going on for as long as I have lived. This changes me into a very defiant citizen. Can anyone imagine what it would be like to wake up and say "Wow, I love what my government is and what it does..." This is not the reality, so my thought is that the U.S. government is in a wrong universe, that we as a nation have to have a paradigm shift of how we conduct ourselves in the world. We are the imperial power that preys upon the lifeblood of a people and then we speak of human rights when it benefits us. There has been no ethics and no aesthetics in our government, or perhaps it has tiny micro pockets that do not make it into media. But having such a souless government based on fear and retaliation and preemptive strikes is a heavy responsibility for a caring, thinking person. Because even if we dissent they keep it going. Somehow the dissent has to escalate in very visual ways, very visible ways. A really interesting Buddhist Nun by the name of Tsensin Palmo said, "Check your motivation first, and then act, do it in the name of compassion for all the characters, all the people, both the perpetrators and the victims." This of course can happen quite quickly if we want to do it. I want to find the bridges.

Ray Beldner: "I'm very upset about it but because I'm so busy with my family there's not much I can do except sign online petitions. I feel the question of IF we attack is out of our hands. Bush has made up his mind and he'll find an excuse. If it does happen, I'm worried about what a lot of middle class people are worried about, providing for my family. I do a lot of public art funded by percent-for-art programs, and when resources are diverted to war there's less building here at home. And I worry about being involved in a war that can spread, especially with Bush's "go it alone" attitude. We should be making friends, not antagonizing people. He's setting us up for more terrorist attacks."

Nathan Burazer: I don't think my life would change much. I just hope me and my friends and family can keep food on the table. War is very expensive and the economy is already wounded. My respect for the United States government will continue to dwindle, and my pride in being an American (if I ever had any) will, too. I think this is true for many Americans, this country is becoming increasingly divided and the best we can hope for is that the provocative events of late will bring the nation closer to a revolution of consciousness.

Cameron Cartiere: Two thoughts come to mind, both of which I find terribly saddening. The first is that as an American living abroad [London] I find myself often in the position of being asked to defend US foreign policy and, quite frankly, I can't. Despite the terrible tragedy of Sept. 11, I feel that a wave of insanity has crashed over Washington and while I can write letters and sign petitions, I am quite powerless to hold back the tide. With my West coast, non-accent, I often choose the path of least resistance and become an honorary Canadian when strangers ask if I am from the States. My second thought is that if the US (and England for that matter) proceeds, I don't know that the day to dayness of my life, or that of anyone else outside of Iraq, will change dramatically. Given the recent history with our foray into Afghanistan, the only people who will be radically effected will be the citizens of Iraq — the average person just trying to feed their family and stay alive. Here in lies the sad luxury of having a war "over there'"— the conflict becomes a series of news highlights, statistics, and abstract government press briefings, filtered via CNN and when it all becomes too much to bear, we can simply turn of the television. The people of Iraq will be caught in to middle of this war of policy and there is no off switch for them.

Ann Chamberlain: Everything will be the same — I will go to work, come home, eat meals. The only thing that will have changed will be, we will be living in a country that is increasingly isolated and rightly hated by much of the world for its greed and bullying. I will work and come home knowing that we will have lost our democracy twice: first in a false election and secondly through laws voted on by Congress, giving our president the authorization to use force when and how he pleases throughout the world.

Margaret Crane: Since I am neither a member of the American military nor a resident of Iraq, I'm sure I will be, relatively speaking, fine. I'll probably miss my civil liberties at first, but as time goes by I imagine I'll adapt to life without them... What's with this question, anyway? It's so passive...so "all about me." I'd rather not assume that war is a done deal. This might be a good point in time to think in terms of dissent. Following are some on-line resources: Congressional Contact Information, National Network To End War Against Iraq, the Friends Service Committee petition, and a schedule of protests and events, "United For Peace," sponsored by Global Exchange. The text of an interview with Nelson Mandela includes comments on US foreign policy on Iraq. And The Nation has special antiwar pages with more resources on the site. You can also contact the Iraq Speakers Bureau sponsored by the Education for Peace in Iraq Center.

Ella Delaney: I'll become even more overwhelmed with forebodings of darkness in our future, of impotence in the face of these fanatical forces that have taken over my country. I ask myself, why do I keep hearing that over 50% of Americans agree with this red herring from Baby Bush? Why don't I hear an outpouring of American voices calling this the sham that it is? I will try to stay in the United States and search for a new way, to redraw a nation that lives its ideals rather than paying lip service, but I don't know how. I think that protest movements have become nothing more than mildly entertaining media events that have lost any real effectiveness and, short of redrawing the Constitution, electoral politics are just as farcical.

Jessica Dunne: Since I paint cities I can't help but feel that an undertone of fear might work its way into my paintings if it wasn't there already. I think in the arts it takes many years to digest history so I'm so far unimpressed with art made 'about' 9/11. It seems like it's too soon. I mean, just as writers tend to have a ten to twenty year lag on their work reflecting their real life we may only be able to ascertain how it changed art many years from now. I hope to see less of the 'first person singular' in art, i.e. art about issues that are quite narrow, the obsessive complaints of one's identity as, say, a woman, that sort of thing. I'd love it if artists could look outward more. But this can't be forced. The real effects are lurking there under the water and will emerge when ready.


Ian Green: If the U.S. does indeed declare war on Iraq, the sad reality will probably be that my life will not change substantially. It will end up being yet another conflict in which the country being attacked, invaded, liberated, will have its infrastructure destroyed, civilians killed and economy wrecked. Meanwhile the citizens of the country inflicting the damage will be able to sit in the comfort of our living rooms and watch it on TV as if it were a nightly soap opera. I find it disturbing that the U.S. can be inflicting such damage to another country while its citizens are not inconvenienced in the least. To be sure there are situations in the world which necessitate some type of action by other countries in the world, my fear is that the haste with which this situation has turned from a containment strategy to an offensive, unilateral attack on another country is politically motivated. I also fear that this will fuel the fire for those throughout the world who do not like the United States.

James Heron I'll move to France.

Todd Hido: I recently became a father and more than ever I want to the world to be a safe place.

Lynn Hershman: I think the United States already has attacked Iraq. It's been going on for decades. If things escalate now, there will be an increased level of morass that covers dreams, more static in our lives. It's more important than ever to pay attention to poetic thoughts and put them in the air as an antidote to the level of negativity which is now engrained in the environment.

Carol Lemmon: I would be a lot more fearful about what's going to happen here in this country. If we start having gas rationing, everything will go up in an inflationary spiral. I can live without my automobile, but I can't think of anything more terrible than what it must be like in Baghdad right now, waiting for the bombs to fall. What if we were waiting for them to bomb San Francisco? The threat of terrorism would become much more profound, I wouldn't be able to put my blinders on and think that my life is about going to work and my pleasures.

Rigo: I might get arrested. I might start making preparations to go live elsewhere. I certainly will become more actively and militantly anti-Bush, anti-MacDonald's, and anti the Red, White and Blue Nazis - the National Capitalists at the controls of this expansionist North-American Warring Federation.

Allen Spore: In 1968 I was a military pilot stationed in Vietnam. Today, I teach a class at the San Francisco Art Institute, titled "Vietnam Odyssey" which includes a two week tour of Northern Vietnam. On our first student trip to Vietnam in 2001 I met Tran Ky Trung who had been a North Vietnamese soldier during the "American War." Tran, a gentle and intelligent writer, invited us to his home for dinner. After dinner he read from the journal he had written in 1969. It was a poignant moment for me as I realized that we shared the same feelings during the war. We had a lot more in common than not. I am not sure how my life will change if we attack Iraq. I do know that I will not so much be thinking about Saddam Hussen and George Bush as I will be thinking about all the American and Iraqi soldiers and their families. These are people who make unimaginable sacrifices for our government's actions.

Meredith Tromble: "September 12, 2001, I bought five pounds of sugar. We didn't need it, but my mother told me stories, as I was growing up, about having no sugar during the war. I knew foraging in the grocery store didn't make sense, but I felt so lost and wanted to do something. So I guess I'll be stocking the pantry, if I can. I'm concerned that all the ways I've found to work in art, by selling work, teaching, writing, and curating, will dry up. I wonder if the Navy will reclaim the former base where my studio is. None of my imaginings about what might happen are good.

Mary Hull Webster: At the worst, I imagine that nuclear, chemical and biological devices will explode in New York and that I might lose my sister Diane and her family who live in White Plains. I imagine an eventual aftermath such as I've read about in a Paul Auster novel in which there are no cars and no gasoline and not much left at all regarding the way we are accustomed to living. I also imagine that our shining and spectacular city of San Francisco will be a target. My partner and I would, if we were lucky, get to his off-the-grid property in the mountains of Northern California, where we probably would be joined by his son's family; we would not hear from his other son who lives near Boston, nor from my brother in Atlanta or my other sister in Washington, DC. My old father in a small town in NC would be entirely cut-off from his four children; not knowing whether we were dead or alive would probably hasten his demise, even if the lack of his medications didn't do him in. In the country, we would shoot the wild turkeys and deer that we used to love, and try to grow vegetables and hope that the spring water was still clean. We would hoard bullets, since they would be needed for meat and to fend off anyone who tried to displace us or take our food. The new grandchild would not be vaccinated or have pediatric visits. Depending on the timing, I might have to figure out how to deliver that baby. Our contact with the outside world would be through radios, as long as the batteries lasted or we could replenish them in a country where battery manufacturers and radio stations may no longer be in business. The good that might come of this has to do with not being able to do my electronic art and returning to the simplest forms of drawing, writing, and family performances. Everything I've learned as an artist would become life-like art, and I think life would be about feeling among a very small number of people who are trying to survive together, and that there would be good lessons for me in that. At the least, I will carry the guilt of having my country responsible in my name for the worst-case scenario above enacted on the people of Iraq.