Still Undetermined

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Initially installed and performed at the University of New England Art Gallery in 2002, on the anniversary of 9/11/2001. this piece was entitled Total Undetermined referring to the ongoing discovery of casualties from the attack on the World Trade Center. A collaboration with Jennifer Verson and Joanne Cameron, we planted approximately 3000 vials of grass seed, in compost, rose petals and prayer to make visible the lives lost in the tragedy. The images shown here are a continuation of the project shown at the Institute of Contemporary Art at MECA in 2003, by this time the U.S. had gone to war with Afghanistan and Iraq and I continued to count the civilian dead. We were up 16,000 at the time of this work. I planted with the viewers help and together we worked to make the numbers of war casualties visible. The glass vials went out the door of the gallery, up the five flights of stairs, into the next buildings up the street and I still didn't complete the task of 16,000 plantings. Sadly now the number has risen to 193,965 in Iraq (Iraq Body Count project) and 31,000 in Afghanistan.