Proposal Title: Monument for the historical memory, 06/04/2008, Sculpture

Proposal Synopsis: Sumer, Babylon, Mesopotamia, Eden, Iraq. Out of the alluvial sands and plentiful fisheries of the Tigris-Euphrates axis arose the world's first urban culture and with it a legacy that has profoundly influenced all of humanity: agriculture, literacy, the 360' circle, the wheel. Today's Iraq is trapped in the turning of another kind of wheel, the endless grinding of the war machine - a machine fueled by avarice and oil. A conniving imperial occupier leaves a different legacy: nearly a million civilian deaths, a burgeoning refugee crisis, depleted uranium and an emerging internecine war, all under the euphemism of "Mission Iraqi Freedom." This monument commemorates the historical contribution and the current state of entrapment of the Iraqi people. A Sumerian frieze or a cuneiform tablet is set upon a circular bed of sand. The tablet, reminiscent of cultural artifacts raided from Baghdad's Iraq Museum, will be constructed of artificial sandstone. The arc of the circle will be marked in segments of six degrees of separation by luminescent strands of fishing line cum barbed wire; the transformation achieved by by small bits of aluminum tape affixed to the sixty strands. The piece will stand in a blackened, dimly-lit room.

Artist's Biography: With ancestral roots in both Quebec and Newfoundland, Judith Brisson is an artist, teacher, activist and dancer. She lived and worked in Mexico as a fabric artist, before returning to Canada to pursue a career in teaching and the arts. She has used her art to support various human rights organisations, including the Social Justice Committee, Global Justice Ecology, Apathy is Boring and the Oscar Romero Foundation. Recent projects include working on the set of R. Murray Schafer's "Asterion", and organising a two-week documentary film festival/expose on mining entitled "Mauvaises Mines" in collaboration with the Canadian Network for Corporate Accountability.

Artist's Website: http://obrascallejeras.zoomshare.com

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