Mario Chejab – WAR
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| 9/11 My House – 2005 digital print |
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| Self-portrait as Army Man – 2005 photo – 120 cm x 35 cm |
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| army men – 2005 photo document of installation outside of the Tate, London – 175cm height |
Mario Chejab
Annoyed with the violence that hits every day in my country, I started a project called plastic soldiers that is a mixture of sculpture, photography and installation.
The project started with the small army man; I modify them, my army men are not shooting each other or throwing hand grenades, they are suffering like they actually do in the reality.
Then I cast a human size army man without any change but the size, the typical army man, so then it would be similar to those army men that are fighting in Colombia or Iraq or any were in the world, those guys who are like me became plastic soldiers waiting for some one to place them in the battle field. That is the other part of the project which is my self portrait as an army man (Photography). And at the moment I am making a series of soldiers called “tinitus” which are soldiers covering their ears up with their hands like how one does when one does not want to hear something.
Just after four months of living here in England, on September the 11th I started work to find that the U.S. was under attack. I thought that when I left Colombia I had left the threat of being at war, but that day I realized that it happens everywhere everyday and it is worth to talk and work about that.
