War at a Distance:
Documentary Practice, Visual Culture, and Public Conversations about Military Conflict

This two-day symposium and associated exhibition at Gallery TPW will explore the ways in which new representational practices are mediating the terms on which Canadians struggle to make sense of military conflict and in particular, the war in Afghanistan. While war has always been mediated through image and narrative, new technologies and forms of documentary and artistic practice are continuing to alter the range of impressions available to a civic culture. Representations of the Afghani conflict have appeared (and continue to appear) in forms as diverse as television news reportage, feature length documentary film, radio docudrama, hand held videos posted on YOUTUBE, illustrated Internet blogs, and recorded conversations with the family and friends of Canadian servicemen and women (as well as those of non-military personnel working in non-governmental organizations).

Both the exhibition and symposium will create a forum for participants to grapple with the questions that emerge when these artistic and cultural forms are brought into relation, often in ways that blur the distinctions between documentary and aesthetics, art and visual culture, war artist and combatant-diarist, self and other. We ask: How do new forms of visual culture open complex possibilities for enacting relations with the lives touched directly by the conflict in Afghanistan? How are practices of representation—in particular, those that exist on the margins of mainstream discourse about Afghanistan—shaping public response to the contentious issue of the participation of Canadian troops in this war?

For Canadians living far from the realities of Afghanistan, with little knowledge of Afghani histories and the diverse and changing cultures of the region, these representations are the dominant forms through which most of us are able to enter into relations of proximity to those people living and fighting in that country. Engaging with these representations offers a sense of coming closer to the realities of what for most of us will only be experienced as war at a distance. Through the images and stories that these representations offer, we make do with the fragmentary impressions and partial insights that are setting the terms for our public conversations about Canada’s on-going involvement in a conflict that is playing out in a cultural context quite different from our own. It cannot be understated that such conversations have deep affective resonance; they do not take place independent of feelings of fear, pride, sadness, revulsion, hatred, horror, shame and anxiety. As we struggle to make sense of these responses, both as individuals and members of communities, we may begin to craft a public dialogue on Afghanistan that can do justice to the complexity of this conflict.

How we have these conversations matters a great deal as people struggle to come to terms with difficult questions regarding Canadian responsibilities to the world beyond our borders. This is why it is extremely important to understand how new forms of artistic and visual culture taking shape in Canada and Afghanistan may become implicated in the substance of these conversations. It is the reason we intend to explore how it is that diverse representational practices are affecting the experiences of proximity and distance that Canadians have to this war. Through a public symposium and exhibition, this project will bring into critical consideration, how and why the cultural representations of the war in Afghanistan matter.