Projects and exhibitions
 
"Purple Hearts - Back from Iraq"
Photographs
Project description
Photographer
Hiring the exhibition

Project description

"Purple Hearts" is a series of photographic portraits and interviews with American soldiers who have returned home from the Iraq War seriously wounded. The portraits were taken all across the United States.  

"I seek them out in their hometowns, after they have been discharged from military hospitals and in their caserns. I photograph them alone, mainly in their rooms, which feel still and heavy. I avoid the homecoming parades, the purple hearts ceremonies, the yellow ribbons and events with politicians. I want to see the soldier alone in a quiet space, as each confronts his or her sacrifice and considers the experience of war and life ahead as disabled veterans.
 
Before I photograph, I interview them and record their narratives. I ask them questions about their background as a soldier, about their fantasys of war, their experience, and their definition of freedom and democracy. When seen together, the words and images create a complex, sometimes contradictory portrait of human cost of war.
 
There is a curious divide between individuals who live the war each day – the soldiers and veterans, their families, the people of Iraq – and those for whom war is a distant incomprehensible abstraction. My intention with this work is to make that abstraction more intimately felt."

Nina Berman, November 2009