5th Global Conference
Session Eight (B): Art in War: Depicting Conflict
Chair: Rob Fisher
Their War and Mine: The Implications of Self-Portraiture for Australia’s Official War Artists
Sam Bowker
The Australian National University, Canberra, and the National Portrait Gallery, Canberra, Australia
Art based upon themes of war can be found throughout the history of art, across a vast range of geographic, historical and cultural sources. The term "war art" encompasses artworks created during a war in which the artist was directly involved or responding, often prepared for an institutional or memorialising context. Self-portraiture would not be expected to rate a mention in such artwork, but self-portraiture actually makes surprisingly consistent appearances within twentieth century "war art". Almost half of all "Official War Artists" commissioned by the Australian War Memorial (AWM) since the First World War have included a self-portrait with their official war art. These range from subtle allusive references to the artist - secretly incorporated as a soldier or reflected in a tiny background mirror - to overtly titled and unmistakeably figurative self-portraits. The AWM has never held a policy to specifically collect or request self-portraits from their official artists. These works were created at the artist's discretion, and take the forms of drawings, prints, paintings, photographs and sculpture.
Self-portraits play unexpected and revelatory roles in the context of Australia's national collection of war art. Whereas "war art" frequently consists of visual documents created on behalf of other people's experiences, or statements directed by external political needs, these self-portraits reinterpret war through complex autobiographic narratives, introspective analysis, and privately held political stances. This paper will discuss several self-portraits from the twentieth century collection of the AWM. It shall identify key adaptations of the self-portrait genre within the context of their curatorial mission. It will demonstrate how self-portraiture has enabled official war artists to express perspectives not seen in the rest of their "war art" legacy.
Iraqi Schoolchildren Draw ‘Shock and Awe’
Nahal Zamani
American Civil Liberties Union
In late March and early April 2003, Iraqis witnessed the brutal and ferocious offense of the so-called `Shock and Awe' campaign of the United States military. During this time, a group of school children in Baghdad were encouraged to draw and recreate what they had been seeing for an American audience. This collection of drawings becomes a unique documentary; expressing what they have seen, experienced and perceived of the war.
The experiences of the schoolchildren at Al Assail primary school are marked by political violence and its interruption of their lives. Children are often the victims of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder symptoms and are especially vulnerable to psychological trauma; this is intensified when their social infrastructure is shattered. War is a multi-layered phenomenon that seeped into many aspects of the school children’s lives: the war entrenched their daily experiences, augmented their trauma and stress, affected their ability to imagine a future, and militarized their world.
Historically, the representations and experiences of war by children are not known. However, art serves as a particular medium through which children can articulate what they have witnessed and what they are experiencing as a result of the war to an American audience. Their critical artistic testimonies allow us to not only better comprehend their lives but also change the conversation about war.