Bettina WitteVeen: When We Were Soldiers

An interview with German artist and social activist Bettina WitteVeen in anticipation of the opening of her photographic installation When We Were Soldiers… once and young at the Brooklyn Navy Yard Hospital, on view from September 9–October 24, 2015.

Presented as a visual poem, WWWS weaves together over 100 black and white and color analog photographs culled from historic archives, sculptures in the form of large crosses and a walk-in altar with a sound installation. The installation, including WitteVeen’s wide-ranging and visually rich photographs, philosophically and artistically explores the depth of humanity’s collective shadow as it finds its ultimate expression in war and genocide.

Sites of armed conflicts included in the exhibition:
Crimean War (1853-1856)
Third Seminole War (1855-1858)
American Civil War (1861-1865)
Anglo-Zulu War (1879)
Spanish-American War (1898)
Boer Wars (1880-1881, 1899-1902)
Russian Revolution (1905-1924)
World War I (1914-1918)
Stalinist Russia (1924-1953)
World War II (1939-1945)
Spanish Civil War (1936-1939)
First Indochina War (1946-1954)
Indian Partition Violence (1947)
Cuban Revolution (1953-1959)
Vietnam War (1965-1973)
Cambodian Civil War (1970-1998)
Pathet Lao (1970-1989)
Uganda Civil War (1981-1986)
Sri Lanka Civil War (1983-2009)

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