we've received orders not to move

Three people were kneeling in a row with an audio box in front of them. The people wore vintage dresses and aprons. The aprons were white with a pattern ofsmall pink flowers. Each of these flowers was pierced with a safety pin, which was open. The audio was the sound of chains with voices repeating “we have received orders not to move”.This piece was a meditation on gender control both from within and without. Increating the piece I attempted to fill the gender roles women are meant to fill and, in doing so, forced myself to confront my failings in this area. I used inherited sewing kits from my grandmother and great grandmother to sew the aprons by hand despite having no sewing knowledge or experience. The kneeling position of the performers references the sexual roles and expectations which are placed upon women. In both the making of the aprons and the kneeling, I failed according to traditional standards – I was not able to kneel for hours on the end and the stitching on the aprons was inconsistent and flawed. The open safety pins are a visual representation of the pain involved with fulfilling traditional gender roles. The pink flowers are representative of feminine innocence, while the open safety pins express the pain involved when this fantasy of purity is pierced with reality. The audio states “we have received orders not to move”, the voice could belong to one of the people kneeling or from an outsider – this was left purposefully ambiguous. Either way, the people have chosen to obey their orders and, in doing so, intentionally torture themselves.

Hajji

It was just after 9-11 when Hart Viges joined the Army and the start of the occupation. He entered Iraq in March 2003. As a mortar man, he had his first taste of what he calls the loss of humanity that comes with war, when he helped set up rounds aimed at civilian neighborhoods in a small town on the way to Baghdad. He felt his humanity further slipping away when he fell into the habit of labeling everything with the racist epithet, "hajji." His testimony includes stories of raids on the wrong houses, which resulted in prolonged detention of innocent people, and his refusal to pose for a photo with a dead Iraqi man found lying in the road, not because he was disturbed by the death, but because it wasn't his kill. Later, he found a moment of clarity in the midst of chaos. Training his gun site on the face of a man standing in a doorway with an RPG strapped to his back, he saw an expression of fear and confusion that he understood to mirror his own. He didn't pull the trigger.

In this group performance, four soldiers push a “Hajji” back and forth, forcing the anonymous figure to carry a large, branded rock. This happens, in silence, until the “Hajji” can’t hold it any longer and falls to the ground. The began with the intention of addressing the role that racism plays in war that requires soldiers to dehumanize the enemy. A single set of headphones dangled from a wooden stand in the case that anyone was curious enough to put them on and listen. The soundtrack played the horrific testimonies of the Winter Soldiers—testimonies spoken directly from the mouths of Iraq War veterans, all of whom have defied the pressure to remain silent. While the soldiers pushed the "Hajji" back and forth, three plain-clothed participants passed out pamphlets describing what was happneing and how people could obtain more information:

http://ivaw.org/wintersoldier/testimony/video

Jessica Sheu

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