A COUNT

a count 2010 - 2015, vintage gauze, gunpowder, safety, pins, steel rods, installation dimension variable

a count, 2011-2015 Using vintage gauze bandages (including WW II and ink-like gunpowder, I made over 130,000 fingerprint marks on streams of transparent fabric to count the estimate casualties-both military and civilian – result from the U.S. response to the attacks on September 11,2001. These marks appear to bleed through the fabric, staining material meant to staunch and heal. Yet in wetting the gunpowder it is rendered inert, and thus a volatile material of destruction is transformed into the instrument of creation. Installed from floor to ceilling, the streamers hang like peace flags from suspended rods. This counting ended when the majority of US troops left Iraq in December 2011 and when combat operations ended in Afghanistan in December 2014.