Requiem: Enduring Afghanistan, 2008-2015
Dog tags, ball chain, chain link, vintage ledger, fine press pages, ink, Koran stand, steel table
Chain link map: 108 x 72 x 7 inches
Table with Koran stand: 43 x 18 x 12 inches
Walker Art Center

This installation represents an evolution in Bart’s efforts to commemorate the deaths of American soldiers. She created it over the course of several years during the war in Afghanistan (2001–present). A chain-link fence suspended from the ceiling becomes a support for military ID tags, placed to correspond with the number and location of fallen American soldiers in Afghanistan.

Forming a topographic map—more densely layered with tags where deaths have been most numerous—the metal surface suggests barriers, as well as the specific chain-link fence turned memorial that surrounded Ground Zero after the September 11 attacks. On a carved wooden Koran stand in front of this memorial is a ledger on which Bart wrote the names of those soldiers killed.

The war is ongoing, but Bart concluded the project in 2015 after the United States announced the end of its combat mission and plans to withdraw American troops.

Publications:

  • Abracadabra and Other Forms of Protection, Laura Wertheim Joseph editor and curator, Weisman Art Museum, 2020

  • Between Echo and Silence, essay by Joanna Inglot, Law Warschaw Gallery Macalester College

Exhibitions: