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Description A
Description
Many
hands are coming together to make a memorial quilt for the human lives
that have been lost in the US/UK war on Iraq. This quilt will not cover
an Iraqi child who has lost her arms or her mother or her home. But as
the people of the world outside Iraq, who have been helpless to stop this
war and to stop those living and working and fighting in Iraq from dying,
we need a way to learn about those who have come into contact with this
war and who have paid the price with their lives. Most of these have done
so against their own will, simply because they lived in what the US/UK
forces turned into a war zone. We need to know the names of the human
beings who have died not because of the rule of Saddam Hussein, but specifically
because of our own government's policy of pre-emptive war. In our remembrance
of the dead and in our grief over their loss, we can gradually cover our
own ground with this quilt, we can lay it out as a collection of metaphorical
marked graves, we can respond to this tragedy with a piece of art that
mourns with those who are mourning, and that beseeches our government
to think twice before starting another war. |
History of the Quilt Project
March 20, 2003. Shock and Awe campaign begins in Iraq, led by US forces. First death of the war. (Though US air raids in Iraq from January through March, before the official start of the war, had already killed 15 civilians--see specific incidents).
March 27, 2003. While standing outside a full-to-capacity Riverside Church, in Manhattan, where voices are uniting in protest of the war, two artist/educators discuss the human loss inherent in any war, and their helplessness in the face of this latest war. They consider starting a collective, interactive, nation-wide response to this war, as a way to remind Americans that their tax dollars are paying for a war that robs life from elderly civilians, mothers, fathers, children, babies, soldiers, journalists, doctors, cameramen, alike; and as a way to bring all those who are removed by sheer geography, as well as media sanitation of the war, closer to those who are dealing first-hand with the pain and death that this war has wrought.
April 3, 2003. The idea of making a quilt comes up, as something simple and powerful, that will help people to think about the reality of this war, as well as hopefully to change people's hearts about the necessity of war and to prevent another one from happening.
April 12, 2003. This site is launched.
April 22, 2003. List of victims added to the site. Updates to this list will be added as often as we find more names.
May 19, 2003. First quilting workshop, at the Center for Anti-Violence Education, in Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY. Youth ages 6 through 17 memorialized Iraqi children with quilt squares.
May 20, 2003. Brooklyn Parents for Peace decides to host the Quilt at their Peace Fair on October 18, 2003, at the Brooklyn Society for Ethical Culture, 53 Prospect Park West (at 2nd Street).
August 24, 2003. FIrst public Rehumanize quilting event, at the Howl Festival in the East Village, Manhattan.
September 11, 2003. Rehumanize quilting at Reframing 9-11 event at Riverside Church, sponsored by 9/11 Truth.
October 18, 2003. Rehumanize quilting at Brooklyn Peace Fair, sponsored by Brooklyn Parents for Peace, at the Society for Ethical Culture in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
November 8, 2003. Rehumanize quilting at Middle Collegiate Church in the East Village, for the Peace Talks weekend conference.
March/April, 2004. Rehumanize featured in Clamor magazine.
March 20, 2004. Rehumanize: A Conversation between the U.S. and Iraq event planned for Teachers College, Columbia University, sponsored by the TC President's Grant for Community and Diversity.
September 6, 2004. The Rehumanize Quilt begins to travel with the American Friends Service Committee's exhibition, Eyes Wide Open.
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