July 1- 7, 2004

artpicks

The Price of War

Exhibition

From Radnor to the Racquet Club, the blowhards and armchair generals who defended the Iraq War last year remained cozily oblivious to the death and destruction it would entail. It's easy to be a preemptive unilateralist when you and your immediate family won't be the ones worrying about stepping on land mines in 110-degree heat.

Hoping, perhaps, to not let them off so easily, the American Friends Service Committee brings "Eyes Wide Open: Beyond Fear — Towards Hope An Exhibition of the Iraq War," a traveling multimedia exhibit, to Independence Mall this weekend. Passersby on the mall will encounter over 800 pairs of combat boots, each bearing the name of an American soldier killed in Iraq. Another exhibit will list the names of more than 10,000 Iraqi civilian casualties.

Those who are intrigued enough to head into the Visitor Center will view a "multimedia, multisensory" memorial to the casualties, as well as sounds and images meant to convey the domestic effects of the war.

The AFSC and the Quakers have unwaveringly opposed the war since it was just a memo on Rumsfeld's PalmPilot. The fact that they have managed to bring "Eyes Wide Open" within a few hundred feet of the Liberty Bell probably means that the rest of the country is coming around to their way of thinking.

"Eyes Wide Open: The Human Costs of the Iraq War," July 2-3, 10 a.m.-9 p.m., July 4, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., free, Independence Mall, Sixth and Market sts., 215-241-7199.

—Joel Tannenbaum