Karina Aguilera Skvirsky

December 10, 2001 (caves), 2003,
archival inkjet print, 22” x 17 ”

December 12, 2001 (fear, chaos), 2003, archival inkjet print, 17” x 22”

December 13, 2001 (first phase), 2003, archival inkjet print,
17” x 22”

The series, A Nation Challenged (2003), was made by scanning images and articles from the Nation Challenged Section of the New York Times that came out after Sept. 11, 2001. In this series I explore how the war is pictured and presented by the media. I have digitally added Roadrunner icons and used its palette to render the original war photographs cartoon-like shifting their interpretation towards a familiar representation of the American landscape rather than a foreign one. I have also digitally removed text from the original articles to provide a new context—text that references the landscape and not the war—for the images. This emphasis on the landscape provides an alternative to viewing Afghanistan as enemy territory and suggests similarities with the Roadrunner Landscape. The titles of each image refer to the dates when the original photographs and articles were printed.

Projects > Past Projects > A Nation Challenged

All images © Karina Aguilera Skvirsky 2008