Emily Prince
(b. 1981, Gold Run, CA)
American Servicemen and Women Who Have Died in Iraq and Afghanistan
(But Not Including the Wounded, Nor the Iraqis nor the Afghanis)
2004 to the present
Pencil on color coated vellum
Project comprised of approximately 3,800 drawings to be added to daily
Each image: 4 x 3 in. / 10.2 x 7.6 cm.
Overall: 300 x 540 in. / 762 x 1371.6 cm.
Notes:
November 1, 2006
“…and to answer your other question from yesterday - I
am in the midst of catching up with portraits of people who've died in
October…always just catching up.
Emily Prince
In her ongoing project, American Servicemen and Women Who Have Died in
Iraq and Afghanistan (But Not Including the Wounded, Nor the Iraqis nor
the Afghanis), Emily Prince seeks to make a pointed political statement
by offering a detailed rendering of the human cost of war. The project
serves as a memorial, containing individual, hand drawn portraits of the
United States casualties of the War in Iraq. The graphite drawings are
derived from wallet-sized portraits that the families of military personnel
posted on an internet memorial site (www.militarycity.com). Each portrait
is drawn on 4 x 3 inch sheets of colored papers which correspond to the
race of the soldier who has died in the Iraq conflict. The colored paper
is meant to give the viewer an immediate sweep of the racial demographics
of those who have lost their lives. Each sheet of paper includes the portrait
of the soldier which is posted on the website as well as the soldier’s
biographical information including their name, hometown/state, age, date
of death, and other personal, distinguishable facts. Those soldiers on
the website with no corresponding image are represented with an empty
rectangle.
All fifty states as well as the US territories are included in the project.
Prince monitors the website multiple times a week and meticulously collects
all of the information about each soldier and transfers it to a journal.
She then creates the drawings almost immediately after the information
has been collected. She keeps the drawing catalogued in her small studio
where each one receives an envelope labeled with the name of the soldier
and their town/state. These envelopes go into archival boxes and are organized
by state, and alphabetically by last name within the state. While exhibited,
the piece is constantly augmented. Prince creates a map of the U.S. on
the gallery wall, without the use of a grid, and each portrait is hung
in correspondence to the soldier’s hometown location. White pins
distinguish all of the causalities that have occurred prior to the opening
of an exhibition and red pins distinguish those that have taken place
during the time in which the piece is installed. As of November 6, 2006,
3,016 soldiers are portrayed in her memorial.
Prince has recently expanded the project to include soldiers who have
also died in Afganistan.
Emily Prince is a graduate of Stanford University with a double major
in Fine Art and Psychology. She is currently enrolled in the Master of
Fine Arts program at the University of California, Berkeley. The Iraq
war officially began March 20, 2003 however Prince did not conceive of
her project until November 3, 2004; one day after President George W.
Bush was elected to his second term in office. She was troubled about
the war and part of what disturbed her was the human cost on both the
American and Iraqi ends. Of this situation, Prince says, “I saw
the Americans too as victims: mostly poor young kids exploited. Hearing
the casualties keep climbing made me curious as to who these people were.
The number was not enough information for me. It was just and abstraction
for a situation that deemed elaboration.”
Exhibited:
Kapital. Kent Gallery, New York, 21 October – 22 December 2006 (in
progress)
Bay Area Now 4. Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, 16 July
– 6 November 2005 (in progress)
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