These bedrooms once belonged to men and women who died fighting in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. These fallen men and women were blown up by IEDs, RPGs, hand grenades and suicide bombers. They were shot down in ambushes and by snipers. They died in helicopters, in humvees, and in tanks. It all took place thousands of miles away from home, and the country they fought to defend.
The purpose of this project is to honor these fallen – not simply as soldiers, marines, airmen and seamen, but as sons, daughters, sisters and brothers – and to remind us that before they fought, they lived, and they slept, just like us, at home.
Bedrooms of the Fallen was conceived in 2007 as a way to memorialize soldiers and marines who died in Iraq. It was expanded to include casualties from Afghanistan in 2009. The project is a work in progress, and ongoing. The initial goal is to photograph forty bedrooms, and publish a book of the work. If your family has an intact room, and would like to be involved, please visit the participate page.
Ashley has many other insightful and serious projects that deal with the world we live in, whether is be war, examing veterans issues, or effects of the economy. He spent a year in Vienna photographing the rituals about birth and death in his series, Vienna: The first and last breath. His book, Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, chronicles his experience with the Iraq War. He is a young Australian freelance photographer living in New York City with his wife and child. I would like to express a personal thank you to Ashley for his sensitivity and ability to take a hard look at things the rest of us have a difficult time facing.
As I was typing these captions, I kept thinking about my own children and what I was doing on the days that these soliers died. Jack Sweet died on my son's birthday and it brought tears to my eyes thinking about what Jack's family was experiencing on that day.
SPC. Wilfredo Perez Jnr., 24, was killed in a grenade attack on July 26, 2003 in Baquba, Iraq. He was from Norwalk, Conneticut.
Additional images have been removed for licensing issues...if you would like to see more of Ashley's images, please go here.
6 comments:
And once again I find myself thinking: so simple, so strong. Thanks to Aline and Ashley.
Saw this series just this morning in the NY Times Magazine. Brought tears to my eyes, too. So sad. Such important work. Glad you are sharing it.
These images pack so much emotion. Incredible.
Very good pictures, very masterful. I am less keen on the concept because I am not sure it really sheds an interesting light on the subject - what is actually a subject, I may ask?
A great find, though!
http://davidikus.blogspot.com/
The subject is taking a look at the bedrooms of soldier's killed in the war, and how the parents have kept them almost as a shrine to the memory of their lost children. When you look around the room and see the objects that filled this person's life and knowing that they will never return to the space is indcredibly moving.
What an interesting subject. Thanks for putting it out there for even more people to see and experience.
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