4. Visibility and Erasure

Abstract

Chapter 4 examines the memory projects that have emerged in response to the so called global war on terror and attempts to memorialize those who have died and been injured in those post-9/11 wars over the last two decades. It argues that the post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have largely been erased from US culture since the early years of the war, with veterans rendered invisible within the fabric of the nation. Many art projects that have engaged with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have been preoccupied with counting the dead and laboring to make them visible through such media as drawing. Artists and photographers have created images that expose the painful afterlives of severely wounded veterans. Finally, this chapter examines efforts to create an official memorial to the global war on terror on the National Mall and the problems of memorializing two wars that remain ongoing and unresolved, if not unresolvable.