French, Mohawk, British and Colonists, Fort Edward, New York, 2006

archival inkjet print
40" x 50"

From the catalog for the exhibition (New) Disasters of War—Artist's Responses to Goya's Etchings:

This is a photograph of a reenactment in upstate New York of a "French and Indian War" battle circa 1758.

While it is, in essence, part of my ongoing photographic exploration into reenactment pageants and the image of history that they portray in the present-day landscape, this is the only reenactment I've photographed that isn't about the history of American westward expansion in the 19 th century. I sought out this reenactment of the brutal and complex pre-Revolutionary struggle for control of the native American wilderness in response to Goya's "Disasters of War" etchings, as I felt that this particular landscape and era would relate to the etchings' dense drama. I chose not to focus in on the individuals and their particular traumas as Goya did, however, but to present the entire battle scene in the forest and let the viewer find the smaller vignettes of human interaction taking place within it.

My experience of Goya's etchings is similar to my experience of the historical imagery presented by the war reenactors. The catharsis of the act of representing violence and terror seems a similar motivation, but does the subsequent life of the imagery somehow glorify violence as well? Perhaps a purpose of this kind of imagery, whether it's a reenactment or a painting or a B-movie, is that it allows us to take a look at human nature and see what we think.

Exhibition info:
(New) Disasters of War
Singer Gallery
Mizel Center for Arts and Culture
350 S. Dahlia St., Denver, CO  www.mizelcenter.org
January 25-April 6, 2007

30% of the proceeds of sales from the exhibition will benefit Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières.