Casualties

A Triptych I created for my Photography class at TAFE. The assignment was to be a political commentary using toys as props. During the plotting stage of these photographs I was reading a book my friend lent me called 'Raising my voice' by Malalai Joya. The book recounted her experiences in Afghanistan and the surrounding countries during her early years and the Soviet occupation and then later into her adult life and the war between the Taliban and America etc. This really inspired me to create these images based on the Afghani war.

I wanted to get across that its not the Taliban nor the American people who are the casualties of this war. Since the start of all this, including the Russian occupation of Afghanistan, there have been hundreds of thousands, and even possibly millions of deaths, nearly all being that of civilians. Between the few months when we hear about an Australian or American soldiers death [which is extremely sad, and my heart goes out to those families who have lost  members in this war] hundreds of civilians have died. I wanted to get that across in this triptych.

I know that peace is not an easy thing to come to. Its something which is so fragile it can be destroyed by even the smallest miscommunication and its is not something one person can create but we can all hope that one day some kind of agreement can be reached which will stop the tragic blood shed.

©Holly Cashman.

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