Creative Dissent & Conflict: Iraq war

The Blair and Bush coalition was a relationship that took the UK to the Iraq war under questionable pretences, to which creative dissent thrived.

Following 9/11 in 2001 the US took military action in Afghanistan in October. September 2002, the UK publish a dossier on the threat that Iraq poses claiming that Sudam Hussain is in control of weapons of mass destruction that could be used within 45 minutes. Questions about the motive of the war around the oil reserves in Iraq continue to be a question to protesters in UK and US.

"Iraq remains a destabilising influence to... the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East” - US Vice President Dick Cheney

Thousands marched in cities around the country, including New York City, to protest the war in Iraq, available. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/iraq-war-protest-gallery-1.18871

David Gentleman, an illustrator and artist who developed the campaign against the war, it became the iconic poster seen in protests throughout the UK. The posters (below), contain bold black typography and blood splatters against a stark white background.

David Gentleman, DISSENT, March placard, Stop the War, 2003.

David Gentleman, DISSENT, March placard, Stop the War, 2006.

Below is an installation by Gentleman placed next to the Houses of Parliament in Parliment Square, it contains 1,000 paper cards with 100 splatters of blood on each to represent the 100,000 British lives lost in Iraq. A devesting statistic that is visually shown to show the scale of death. In my opinion, the blood splatters can represent a protest by those lost service men and women, questioning those in power on the legitimacy of the war.

David Gentleman, DISSENT, Installation in Parliament Square, Stop the War, 2008.

Gentleman's blood splatter visualises the death and destruction the war was doing especially bringing the bloodshed back to the UK. The UK's society were forced to question political connections to the war because if the use of poster and protest placards. They also protested against the coalition between Blair and Bush creating large-scale hysteria and anger by the public, this eventually lead to the iraq war inquiry.

References

Visual Impact, Creative dissent in the 21st century, Liz McQuiston.

Graphic Agitation 2

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/iraq-war-protest-gallery-1.18871?pmSlide=1.18968

https://www.theguardian.com/books/gallery/2011/dec/13/stop-the-war-a-graphic-history-in-pictures

https://www.creativereview.co.uk/history-anti-war-protest/?nocache=true&login_errors%5B0%5D=invalidcombo&_lsnonce=e5cff56e51&rememberme=1

http://www.artofthestate.co.uk/Banksy/Banksy_Wrong_war_Bridge.htm

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-36702957

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/mar/20/iraq-war-oil-resources-energy-peak-scarcity-economy

Iraq war - Blair & Bush

References