WAR AND PEACE

This installation again took place in the attic of the army barracks at the Headlands Center for the Arts. The room which contained it was sealed off with bird netting, creating a large aviary. As one approached the front entrance to the piece, the lights in the room turned on, illuminating two rows of eight pair of black army boots. Sixteen pair in all. They were attached to ski-like tracks. Entering, the boots began moving back and forth on their tracks. simulating a slow march to nowhere. Also in the room were sixteen white doves. They usually fed on the ground, so when the boots started moving, the birds flew up in a graceful flutter to their perch near the back windows. There were no other elements in the piece, just the marching boots and their slow, grinding sound and the doves whose soft cooing could be heard at the other end of the attic.. We intended this piece to be a simple meditation on war and its social implications. The boots stood in for infantrymen but also represented technology and it's potential for dehumanization. The doves stood as nature to this culture. They became witnesses to the scene before them, flying freely in contrast to the regimentation of the monotonous shuffling boots.

War and Peace, 1992, Collaborative site-specific installation (with Robin Lasser), Headlands Center for the Arts, Sausalito, CA; metal, motors, live white doves, 8'x 16'x 40'