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From birds to bombs

Erin Bowen

War does not end with the soldier, the political leader and the battlefield. War seeps into the culture and people-even becoming woven into Afghani artistic expressions and the everyday lives of an Oxford mother and her son.

"Tanks, Helicopters, Guns and Grenades: The Afghan War Rugs of the 1980s-2007" exhibit at the Miami University Art Museum illustrates the impact of war on Afghani culture. Instead of portraying the landscape and geometric motifs typical to traditional Afghani rugs, the ancient art form now bears the physical scars of a war-ravaged country.

The Afghan war rug exhibit became a reality when Natalie Marsh, curator of collections at the Miami's Art Museum, stumbled across a photo of the rare rugs in an interior design magazine.

"I was fascinated to see how the nomadic and tribal traditions of Afghanistan combined with contemporary Western exposure in an art form," Marsh said.

Marsh contacted Kevin Sudeith, a private rug collector and dealer from New York, then spent a three-day period selecting rugs for the exhibit. Featuring 84 rugs, Marsh said the Miami exhibit running Sept. 6 through Dec. 7, is the largest of its kind in the U.S.

For Miami graduate Zack Pace, Afghani culture is a different type of reality-he's been stationed there with the United States Army Infantry since January 2007. Pace, who is 27 and has an infant daughter, says he spent last spring fighting the Taliban in the Helmand Province, home to 95 percent of the world's opium supply, but he has also spent time in Kandahar, Kabul, and the Nangahar provinces.

Prior to his deployment to Afghanistan, Pace was stationed in Iraq in 2005.

Comparing the experiences, Pace said Afghanistan is a far more cultured region.

"Afghans are a very proud people and unlike Iraq, their loyalties don't lie on Shi'ite and Sunni lines," Pace said, via e-mail. "Their loyalties lie with their tribe and country."

Linnea Hedrick, Miami art professor, has studied the cultured region Pace describes through the war rugs. She first became aware of the art form while participating in the Midwest Art History Society's annual conference at Notre Dame in 2004. Today, Hedrick expresses fascination at the bizarre combination of violence, history and trauma found in the war rugs.

Hedrick said the rugs come mainly from the Baluchi nomadic tribe. According to Hedrick, Afghani women and young girls weave the rugs while tending to children at their feet. Historically, Afghan rugs featured intricate landscapes with flowers, birds and horseback warriors. Today, however, most of the rugs are created in refugee camps in Pakistan or Iran and portray guns, bombs, airplanes and other forms of violence.

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"They are beautiful and combine traditional patterns with finely woven tanks, landmines, helicopters, and so on," Hedrick said. "One uses airplanes pulled into a snowflake pattern. The wonder of that and the fear."

Pace has also found wonder and fear of his own in Afghanistan.

Describing a recent mission in the Kandahar Province, Pace was amazed by lack of modern progress and convention in daily life.

"The occasional car or motorcycle would scream through the desert, but most people we encountered were migrating nomads with herds of goats and camels, which travel back and forth from the mountains to the plains," Pace said. "They live in small circus-like tents and though they use currency, some had no concept of what electricity was."

As a soldier, life in Afghanistan is no easy task. On any given day, Pace says he can hear 15 different languages used by fellow soldiers from countries including Great Britain, Canada, Poland, Germany, Korea, Mongolia, Spain, France, Bulgaria and Romania. These soldiers face the added struggle of extreme weather conditions, with bone-dry summer temperatures reaching between 115 and 130 degrees Fahrenheit, according to Pace.

"Simply put, the mountains are so tall you cannot climb them, the weather is so hot you cannot move during the day with your body armor on, the roads are littered with bombs and mines and sometimes you run into people who want to kill you," Pace said. "Luckily as Americans, we tend to come out on top most of the time."

Pace sees the country, which has been engulfed in war since the Russian invasion, as simply tired of fighting.

Marsh and Hedrick say this long history of violence in Afghanistan is pictorially and symbolically depicted in the war rugs. Beginning with the Soviet invasion in 1979, transitioning into the Taliban era, and culminating with the post-September 11 American presence, Afghanistan is a country of war and struggle.

"The rugs are a mini course in the history of Afghanistan," Marsh said. "They show the process of war, helicopters over mosques, fighter jets dropping bombs and warfare around villages."

As a response of a country very familiar with war, Hedrick said the Afghans use the rugs as a release.

"(The rugs) are perhaps one way of dealing with the disruption of ordinary lives that war brings," Hedrick said.

It is not just lives of those in Afghanistan that have been disrupted.

Zack's mother, Sarah Pace, pro tem president of the Blue Star Mothers of Oxford, described her son's deployment to Afghanistan as a nightmare.

"Sometimes I hear from him every day, sometimes I hear from him once in three weeks," Sarah Pace said. "It's 135 degrees and the physical endurance is horrible."

As a member of the Blue Star Mothers organization, Sarah Pace works with other military mothers to support both their children and the other soldiers. Currently, she is the only mother in the Oxford chapter with a child stationed in Afghanistan. With the support of her organization and her own coping mechanisms, Sarah Pace has found ways to deal with worrying about her son.

"Do I worry? Of course I do," Sarah Pace said. "Is this the first time he's been deployed? No. Life goes on. It's our way of life. I'm not typical. I know mothers who don't sleep, but I have mechanisms to stay informed. The more informed I am, the less chances there are for surprises."

One of those coping mechanisms includes a map with pushpins. She identifies regions her son is stationed to avoid unnecessary worry.

The rugs serve a similar emotionally soothing purpose, Hedrick said.

"Art tries to make sense of events and brings people's hopes and fears and customs together with current events," Hedrick said.

"Each piece of art is not just a rug," Marsh added. "Some rugs have fairly truthful representations of different kinds of grenades and locations of landmines so people will be able to identify them and avoid danger."

To Hedrick, the rugs represent the resilience of the Afghan culture.

"They represent the vitality of a people who can still create while under assault," Hedrick said. "They document the people's observations of the war and maybe embody their hope that their own culture has strengths and beliefs that will survive."

Zack Pace has also shown resiliency. While he says the Afghans are extremely appreciative for the United States' help in eradicating the Taliban, learning to adjust to the traditional viewpoints and culture of Afghanistan has been a bit of a challenge.

"Afghanistan is a place where women are treated not only like dogs, but worth less than a cow," Zack Pace said. "Honor killings, women setting themselves ablaze, and stonings still take place. Knowing that really makes you wonder if our commitment to these people is worth it. Luckily, once you begin to lose hope, you come across a school for females just as we did the other day. That's how you get through it. For every horrible thing you experience, you'll see something amazing."

The key to peace, according to Zack Pace, is learning to understand the Afghan and Islamic cultures.

"It didn't make me better shoot my weapon, but it did prepare me to accept cultural differences which catch the average American solider off guard," s aid Zack Pace, who studied political science and the Middle East at Miami.

Zack Pace is hopeful the Afghan war rug exhibit will be the first step for cultural awareness.

Marsh hopes that viewers come to the exhibit with an open mind, free of political bias.

"The war rugs give one an expanded opportunity to consider the deeper implications of warfare without taking a Republican or Democratic side," Marsh said. "If we look at these rugs as individual stories, we can only enrich our respect for other people from another part of the world."

Laura Godfray and Gregory Kody, both Miami sophomores and art enthusiasts, visited the exhibit.

"Miami University students should be interested in how war is perceived from the other side," Kody said. "In the case of the Afghans, their perspective is expressed through art."

Godfray was surprised by the exhibit.

"I was so touched and stunned to see such unexpected beauty in the portrayal of tanks and helicopters," she said. "It was both heartbreaking and thought provoking."

When Zack Pace returns home in April after 15 months of active duty, Sarah Pace hopes he will bring back an Afghan war rug.

"Afghanistan is now part of our family history," Sarah Pace said. "The rugs are very unusual, but I would certainly not put it down to walk on it. I feel a certain closeness to the rugs and to the people of Afghanistan."

Her son sees them as a symbol of hope for the Afghans.

"When someone originally sees this exhibit, they might think a rug is a rug is a rug," Zack Pace said "But with proper historical explanation, they might understand that Afghans are as patriotic as Americans and though not nearly as educated, they want the same thing-a life of peace with freedom."


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