An ongoing public art project

Produced my Minneapolis artist, Camille J. Gage

Each month local artist Camille J. Gage sends out an email to a list of volunteers recruiting community members to stand witness to the soldiers killed in action and wounded in action in the war in Iraq.

Iraq KIA WIA volunteers head to a freeway overpass at rush hour armed with numeric signs large enough to be read from blocks away. Each volunteer holds a number and together the numbers represent the total number killed in action and wounded in action in Iraq. The number is book-ended signs that read:

Begun on the 3 year anniversary of the invasion, the Iraq KIA WIA project was designed to keep the number of killed and wounded U.S. troops in the public consciousness. The project was intentionally designed to be devoid of editorial comment. There are no American flags, no peace signs. There is only the number, taken from the icasualties.org web site the morning of each outing.

The project started on May 20, 2006 during a march to commemorate the three-year anniversary of the war. The WIA KIA number at that time was 18,970. The number today (July 1, 2008) is 34,468

The number of Iraqi civilian casualties is unknown.

http://www.gageart.net/