The Crane Project, Helping to See the Losses of the Iraq War
As we begin 2009 the coverage is cutting back even further. All of the major television outlets are eliminating a full-time coverage in Iraq. They will be relying on coverage from reporters in the Middle East. According to some reporters, producers for the news programs did not want to show "the same old story". The perception is the news is too depressing for the viewer, and they will change the channel. In addition, rebuilding the infrastructure of Iraq does not have the drama that news producers are looking for in their coverage.
I believe we must see what this war has cost in human life. The United States invaded a country,removed the government, the army and the police, and is now occupying that country. The lives being lost go far beyond the American soldiers, which is tragic enough. Coalition forces, contractors, journalists, and tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens. More than 100,000 lives have been prematurely cut short, under tragic circumstances
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How can we understand what the price of war is in human terms if we don't see it? This art project is using origami cranes to represent those lives.
We have to see the price to make the right choices in the future.
Summarizing the Numbers:
American soldiers killed: 4328
Coalition forces killed: 317
Journalists killed: 168
Contractors: 456+ (exact number unknown)
Estimating the Losses by the Iraqis
Find Out More About the Crane Project
- Telling the Story with Cranes
- Iraq War By the Numbers
- Waxed Paper Cranes are Being Folded by Many Volunteers to Represent the Iraqi citizens
- Why Am I Using Cranes?
- Crane Production to Date:
- What Does a Casualty Number Mean?
- One Crane, One Story
- The Cost of the War in Iraq in Dollars and Cents
- Ready to Help? Here Are Some Ways to Jump In.
- Peaceful Thoughts or Inspirations
- The Crane Project In Pictures
- War and Peace
Telling the Story with Cranes
Representing the Deaths in the Iraq War in a Concrete, Visible Way
The cranes being made to represent the Iraqi citizens will be folded from waxed paper. My hope is to create a display that will be able to represent the 100,000+ Iraqi citizens who have died from this war. They will not have names, because in many cases we do not have that information. And it further illustrates how invisible these lives, and the loss of these lives, has been to us.
Coalition forces will be represented with cranes folded from white vellum. The country from which they come will be added onto one of the wings. And journalists who lost their lives in Iraq will be portrayed with cranes folded from articles about the war, or the Middle East.
Coalition Forces will be represented with Vellum cranes.
Cranes for Journalist killed in Iraq folded from articles about the war.
Iraq War By the Numbers
- The population of Iraq is 27 million
The population of Texas is 24 million. - Iraqi civilians killed by violence since the invasion: more than 85,000.
More than one million Iraqi civilans have been wounded.
This means that one out of every 120 to 300 civilians have been killed in this war. And approximately one in 25 have been wounded. - For every American soldier killed in Iraq, at least 20 to 25 Iraqi civilians have died.
- Unemployment in Iraq is 30%
Only about 30% of Iraqi students are attending classes. - The cost of the war was projected by the Bush administration to be $50 to $60 billion.
Waxed Paper Cranes are Being Folded by Many Volunteers to Represent the Iraqi citizens
Why Am I Using Cranes?
Why have I decided to use cranes to represent the lives lost in Iraq? Cranes are symbols of peace and long life, as well as symbols of prosperity and fidelity. It is those first two that offer the connection I want to make.
Legend was, that cranes would live for 1000 years. Thus they became symbols of long life. The connection with peace is a more recent one. It arises from the story of a little girl in Japan, Sadako Sakasi, who became ill with leukemia, ten years after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.
I have been making cranes from polymer clay for more than five years, and I have seen many times how people have seen the crane as a way to memorialize a loved one, or to celebrate a new life, a new wedding, or an anniversary. The stories I have been told have touched my heart, and made me more aware of the power of a symbol. These experiences fueled my inspiration for this project.
Crane Production to Date:
Polymer clay cranes made: 1697(to 6/10/05)
Number of waxed paper cranes on hand (Iraqi civilians): 7100+
Cranes from magazine articles (journalists): 83
Cranes from vellum (coalition forces): 24
What Does a Casualty Number Mean?
curated content from YouTube
One Crane, One Story
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The Crane Project
Showing the human price of the Iraq war.
It is easier for us to imagine the trillions of dollars being spent in Iraq than it is to imagine the thousands and thousands of lives being lost. The Crane Project is an art project that attempts to make the numbers concrete. Origami cranes are being made from polymer clay to represent the soldiers, the journalists, and the Iraqi citizens who have lost their lives in the invasion and occupation of Iraq.
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See How The Project Goes, from Clay to Cranes on Cables
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