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February Issue
2009
College of Charleston
Exhibition Shows Two Views of War on Terror
The Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art and The Center for the Documentary at the College of Charleston, in Charleston, SC, is presenting the exhibition, War on Terror: Inside / Out - Photographs by Christopher Sims and Stacy Pearsall, on view through Feb. 27, 2009.
Curated by Halsey Director,
Mark Sloan, this exhibition juxtaposes the work of two artists
focused on different aspects of the War on Terror. Christopher
Sims' photographs capture simulated Iraqi and Afghani villages
in the United States, where troops train prior to their overseas
deployment; while Pearsall, a military photographer, shows American
troops on the field in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Timed to coincide with the beginning of Barack Obama's first term
as President, this exhibition provides a glimpse into two worlds
we have had very little access to since the War on Terror began.
According to Sloan, "These photographers show us aspects
of what life is like for the US soldier from training to battlefield."
Christopher
Sims
Sims' photographs are selected from his recent series, Home Fronts: The Pretend Villages of Talatha, Braggistan and Medina Wasl, taken on US Army base training grounds in North Carolina, Louisiana, and California. Sims received his undergraduate degree in history from Duke University, his MA in visual communications from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and his MFA in studio art from the Maryland Institute College of Art.
Sims currently teaches photography and multimedia at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke. He received a national fellowship from the Houston Center for photography and was featured in the book American Photography 20, a collection edited by Kathy Ryan of The New York Times Magazine. Sims' photographs are courtesy of Ann Stewart Fine Art.
Stacy Pearsall
Now living in Charleston, Stacy Pearsall got her start as an Air Force photographer at the age of 17. She attended Syracuse University where she won the Associated Collegiate Press Award. Her work has been published in Time, Newsweek, The New York Times, on CNN, and the Oscar-nominated PBS program, Operation Home Coming. She is one of only two women to win the National Press Photographers Association's Military Photographer of the Year competition and the only woman to have won it twice. Now retired from the Air Force after ten years, Pearsall works worldwide as a freelance photographer and serves as the acting Director of the Charleston Center for Photography.
To close the exhibition, the Halsey Institute will present the film Full Battle Rattle on Feb. 27, 2009, at 8pm, in Room 309 of the Simons Center. These events are free and open to the public. This feature documentary is the story of a real war and a fake town. Set in California's Mojave Desert, the US Army has built a virtual Iraq where Army units spend three weeks inside the simulation before deploying to Iraq. The film follows an Army battalion, as they attempt to quell an insurgency and prevent the mock village of Medina Wasl (also a location where Sims has photographed) from slipping into civil war.
For further information
check our SC Institutional Gallery listings, call the gallery
at 843/953-5680 or visit (www.halsey.cofc.edu).
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