Afghanistan: "Windows and Mirrors"

Reflections of war on display

January 4, 2011 - A mural that commemorates civilian casualties that happened during the Afghanistan war is currently on display at Queens College’s Godwin-Ternbach Museum.

“Windows and Mirrors: Reflections on the War in Afghanistan” opened at the Godwin-Ternbach Museum on December 9 and will remain on display through January 30. Before making it to New York, it had made its debut at Philadelphia’s Arch Street Meeting House.

The mural consists of 50 parachute fabric panels that are 4’ x 6’ in size. Artists and students created the pieces. In addition to showing civilian casualties, the panels also depict what it’s like to live in war as seen by schoolchildren in Afghanistan.

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“Windows and Mirrors” was organized by the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), which created the mural “to help us all understand the human cost of war in Afghanistan,” according to the organization’s web site. It also explained that “in ‘Windows and Mirrors,’ the eyes of artists and children become ‘windows’ through which we see the reality of war. They also become ‘mirrors’ reflecting back to us our own identity as a nation at war.” {continued}