{"id":55862,"date":"2017-03-23T21:04:55","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T02:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=55862"},"modified":"2017-03-23T21:04:55","modified_gmt":"2017-03-24T02:04:55","slug":"art-exhibit-honors-a-new-generation-of-female-casualties-of-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/art-exhibit-honors-a-new-generation-of-female-casualties-of-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Art exhibit honors a new generation of female casualties of war"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kaylah Jackson<\/strong><\/p>\n

R.G. \u201cBuz\u201d Leland, who memorialized America\u2019s female casualties of war as part of the Women of Courage Exhibit on Friday, said that everyone has a story to share.<\/p>\n

\u201cI hope that people would see this and think about that title and not only think of warriors, but there are women–people. We all have a story–get some compassion, that\u2019s what I wanna yell,\u201d said Leland, the artistic director of the exhibit\u2019s memorial at the Ukrainian National Museum, where handcrafted work by female veterans was featured.<\/p>\n

The exhibit includes mixed media art, paintings, sculptures, drawings, and self-portraits but the main component of the exhibit is \u2018A Touching Tribute,\u2019 an interactive exhibition featuring the names and faces of fallen military women.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201c It was originally conceived and designed to allow current military members, especially if they\u2019re in a wheelchair, to touch and do rubbings of the dog tags,\u201d said Jerry Kykisz, curator of the Women of Courage Exhibit. \u201cThe ultimate goal of the touching tribute is to do exhibits that honor all the casualties post 9\/11 and this particular box is the women\u2019s box.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"mixed
A mixed-media self portrait by Annamae Taubeneck, a helicopter crew chief and veteran of the US Army. Taubeneck was the first female in her family to serve in the military.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As of October 2016, there were over 2 million<\/a> women veterans in the United States, and almost 20 percent<\/a> of women veterans who were involved in conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan were diagnosed with PTSD.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of the women that died since the 9\/11 conflict began are represented here and they\u2019re corresponding, so when the lid closes, their photograph connects with the name, a total of 166 names thus far and since women are more and more joining combat units, we left a little space for future applicants,\u201d Kykisz said.<\/p>\n

\u2018A Touching Tribute\u2019 was the brainchild of Leland, 65. Leland\u2019s background in pottery and his previous work on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial located along the Chicago riverwalk helped inspire him for the layout of this specific project.<\/p>\n

Leland said: \u201cIt was kind of cathedral looking like the way the lines come together. You can touch, you can take a tracing and say \u2018there\u2019s my son or daughter,\u2019 when you read it up, the face and the names match each other, when the lid closes there is still some light–it became real emotional.\u201d .<\/p>\n

Created by hand, over the course of about a month, the women\u2019s portion of the memorial is part of a larger set of boxes that is designed to fit into the shape of a star and cover the space of a 150 square-foot room. Six boxes within the project hold 200 names and photos and the rest of the boxes hold 120 names; all of which are grouped by year. The single black tag in the box represents suicide awareness in the military.<\/p>\n

Military Times<\/a> has a database on its website that provided the names and photographs of individuals for the project and Leland sought out Logo Tags, a small business in New York City, which printed the tags. Coincidentally, Logo Tags invented the ball chain that is used by servicemembers who wear the dog tags.<\/p>\n

\"Buz
R.G \u201cBuz\u201d Leland pictured next to his creation, \u201cA Touching Tribute.\u201d<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Leland, who served alongside women and as a Navy diver for four years did not want the access of the memorial to be hindered for anyone.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt does make it a little more meaningful that this is Women\u2019s History month and these are women of courage,\u201d Leland said. Many of the Navy women that I served with were experts in their field for sure. …I didn\u2019t want to ever hear someone from a wheelchair not being able to have access.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ability to have a physical interaction with \u2018A Touching Tribute\u2019 models similar veteran memorials around the United States and offers the public an opportunity to share an intimate moment with the effects of war.<\/p>\n

\"dog
A close-up of \u2018A Touching Tribute\u2019 which allows the public to transfer tracings of the names of the women on paper.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWhen you look at the total exhibit, I would like people to be horrified in war…the overwhelmingness of it,\u201d Leland said. \u201cYou look at it and you go \u2018whoa.\u2019 Maybe people will take away from it that there\u2019s got to be a better way. …When you look at the photographs and say \u2018wow, that could be my sister,\u2019 \u2018that was my girlfriend.\u2019 Every sacrifice has a name and a face.\u201d<\/p>\n

For many veterans, like the women who submitted artwork for the museum and Leland, who worked on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in the early \u201990s and has used art as a type of calming therapy, creating pieces such as \u2018A Touching Tribute,\u2019 has helped him to be at peace.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew that something had to help with the guilt, …Maybe it\u2019s a brush stroke or the shape of a pot. …The only way to be at peace is to be at peace with everything, so touch, look and sight: those are the first ways that you can get there, that\u2019s why I like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like Leland, and so many of the women who contributed to the Women of Courage Exhibit, it\u2019s up to the newer generations of veterans to find an outlet for them to convey their stories and messages.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s other guys out there like me, thinking like me, that\u2019s kinda what I want for 9\/11, the young guys to figure out, don\u2019t wait until 20 years, start working on it now,\u201d Leland said. \u201cIt did that to countless numbers of guys. It was like the museum saved us and maybe our new memorial will save some of [you] guys.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018A Touching Tribute\u2019 Exhibit in the Ukrainian National Museum displays the names, branches, ranks and photographs of 166 women casualties of war after 9\/11(Kaylah Jackson\/MEDILL)<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kaylah Jackson R.G. \u201cBuz\u201d Leland, who memorialized America\u2019s female casualties of war as part of the Women of Courage Exhibit on Friday, said that everyone has a story to share. \u201cI hope that people would see this and think about that title and not only think of warriors, but there are women–people. We all […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":361,"featured_media":56408,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3516],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55862","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-winter-2017"],"yoast_head":"\nArt exhibit honors a new generation of female casualties of war - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/art-exhibit-honors-a-new-generation-of-female-casualties-of-war\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Art exhibit honors a new generation of female casualties of war - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Kaylah Jackson R.G. \u201cBuz\u201d Leland, who memorialized America\u2019s female casualties of war as part of the Women of Courage Exhibit on Friday, said that everyone has a story to share. \u201cI hope that people would see this and think about that title and not only think of warriors, but there are women–people. 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