A car sits motionless. Onlookers walk by. Drivers pass, unable to help and unable to stop. The oxidized metal burns orange under the daylight. Twisted metal curls underneath itself, like an exposed child seeking protection. A public space is disrupted, and soon the malfunctioning car seems natural within the scenery. Within Philadelphia’s historic Independence Mall pedestrians familiar with urban terrorism via television and newspapers will witness its effects first-hand. British artist Jeremy Dell, in collaboration with Slought Foundation, Creative Time and the New Museum will be bringing their traveling exhibit It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq to the streets of Philadelphia.
The event aims to not only expose the public to sights of the Iraq war that go on unseen, but allow for dialogue that goes unsaid in everyday accounts of the Iraq war. Deller decided one way to do this would be by bringing a piece of war-torn Iraq to the streets of U.S. cities. This Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., a bombed-out car, destroyed in March 2007 in Baghdad, will be on display in front of the National Constitution Center at 5th and Arch Street. A public conversation featuring the artist, Nato Thompson (curator at Creative Time), Esam Pasha (artist and former translator for the Chief Advisor in the British Embassy of Baghdad and for American forces around Iraq) and Jonathan Harvey (a Platoon Sergeant for the U.S. military and a specialist in the psychological effects of warfare who was recently demobilized) will take place the same evening at Slought Foundation (4017 Walnut St.).
Political neutrality is the intention, and viewers are asked to bring their own ideas and reactions to the project when its experienced in the open streets of Philadelphia. According to Slought Foundation, the project hopes to “stimulate unmediated dialogue about Iraq and our relationship to it.” While the project itself may not be inherently political, it would hard to respond to the project with the apathy typical of the politically disinterested. With its subtle insertion into the Philadelphia's public space, It Is What It Is hopes to shake up the very foundation of our experience with the disaster.
