Artist and curator Cecelia Kane spearheaded an acclaimed art initiative with 195 artists, “Hand to Hand,” to raise consciousness about the ongoing Iraq War, documenting each week until the war ended, by using gloves as the support for the art. My assignment, the week of April 28-May 3, 2008, followed The “Green Zone” in Sadr City, where the war’s “signature weapon,” the roadside bomb, continued to kill and injure American servicemen as well as innocent Iraqi civilians and children. Modern body armor may have reduced actual death, but survival came at a steep cost with the loss of limbs. The fragments of textiles and trims, twisted wire, along with broken tree branches reminiscent of limbs, trunks and stubs in my collages attached to the gloves, reflected the fragility of what was considered to be a safe sanctuary within Sadr City.

Mixed media; 6 gloves, approx. 6” x 8”each