Dancing on a razor's edge

It has been a decade since Al Henderson served with the South Alberta Light Horse. In some ways, the former reservist is still fighting his battles. In other ways, he is fighting battles for others.

"The last two, two-and-a-half years, it's consumed my whole life."

The St. Albert artist has just put the finishing touches on an intense multimedia exhibit that looks at the war in Afghanistan. He has never been there himself. He still has buddies in action and these are their stories.

"If you're an artist, what do you do? You do things in your own village."

The gauntlet that Henderson picked up is huge and unwieldy. The prospect of 'war art' is daunting because it runs such an immense risk of being either propaganda or patronizing to the oppressed. There are only two sides that can be spoken to. If you aren't promoting the war then you must be protesting. To dance along the edge of that razor requires finesse and delicacy.

Henderson didn't even know exactly what he was getting himself into. He just knew that he had to get into it.

"The problem that jumps up is 'Well, what am I going to do?' It really did begin with a lot of digging deep and 'What is it I'm doing this for?' and 'What do I want to do with it?'"

As with any war, there is no shortage of stories. The only problems are picking the stories and finding the right media with which to tell them.

The art of war

While serving as a reservist, he was given the task of making sketches of fortifications for official use, including battalion newsletters.

One must first live in combat before being able to draw the pictures, says the artist, or failing that, go straight to the source. He talked to his buddies.

"That's really where it began. I didn't have any particular notion of what was going to be done but through the process of them telling me their stories, the work started to develop."

Although these discussions had many tangents, a primary focus emerged right in between the patronizing pap and the propaganda. He decided on neither the pro nor con sides of war.

"The show has got to do with the war obviously, but it's got to do with other themes as well, interests I have in who I am and who we are as individuals or part of a group. The culture in Canada and the culture in Afghanistan are very different. How do people self-identify tribally or individualistically?"

It is almost then a purely scientific reporting of conflict through artistic means, although Henderson takes an obvious stance on who the protagonists and antagonists are. He shows us the face of war — everyone has a gun and no one gets to win. That sounds and is far too simple. There are many other facets of the complex nature of the subject to explore.

The show on the front line

Dick Averns is an interdisciplinary artist who was part of the Canadian Forces Artists Program from 2008 to 2009. He was deployed to the Middle East and creatively explores his experiences through writing and photography. He wrote the invaluable notes for the catalogue that accompanies Light Horse Tales.

He takes an even broader perspective where WikiLeaks and live tweeting can both bridge and confuse the gap between the experience and the understanding of what's happening and why.

"Whereas much military art is often highly representational and/or a sugar-coated memorializing, Alan's new work brings a critical and contemplative front to the fore," he explained. "The conceptual value is strong — the riddles and visual ambiguity of Light Horse Tales will stand as a significant marker for Canada's involvement in Afghanistan."

The viewer must consider the larger picture of Operation Enduring Freedom with support from a coalition of armed forces. The Canadian military has been involved with those allies since the early days with our government first saying that it would get out of Afghanistan by the end of 2010.

Interpretations are subsequently integral to the military experience. Not everyone is on the same page, meaning that misinformation and disinformation abound. A clear path through a minefield is tricky business.

Lost in translation

The show itself is fascinating, a grand display of Henderson's vast abilities with graphic and industrial design, as well as sculpting. There are marble pieces, even cast bronze, supplemented with lightjet prints on aluminum sheets. These offer a comic book's insight into an unknown narrative in a foreign language.

Looking at the work, an interpreter is needed for the scanty Pashto phrases occasionally inscribed on the pictures. In the absence of that, the viewer must decipher all. Henderson as soldier artist offers a muddied view of trench art. There is some – but only some – poetry in the sculptures. We admire his craftsmanship with the impressive details of Taliban Hand but what does it all mean? A young girl holds aloft the turret of a tank like it was a balloon string. Why?

The digital images are in the style of a military language translation guide. This looks like the pictorial demonstration of an airplane seatbelt offered by flight attendants, except this has improvised explosive devices and bloodshed.

Averns' catalogue is practically required reading. It offers much insight, especially with the inclusion of several first-hand accounts from Henderson's colleagues. Rob's Story shows an incident with soldiers in a tank being hit by missiles, a bag of sunflower seeds features prominently and inexplicably. The narrative offered by a Sgt. McCue describes the sequence of events with an unexploded rocket hitting the turret of his LAV before a second explodes against a nearby wall, "throwing rock and dust everywhere." A colleague is struck and disembowelled. Another is hit in the neck and armpit.

"It still sends shivers down my back just thinking about it. That RPG came right over my head," he says in the notes. "I still get it when I run over a pothole or I hear a noise I'm not expecting. It hits me even three years later."

Essentially, Henderson is showing us pain during these strange days. Whether we understand or comprehend is moot. The important thing is that we continue to observe and not let the suffering pass unnoticed.

"I felt that there were some things that weren't being done in terms of representing the war. I thought that the fine arts, the visual arts, had a very good way of getting some things across. There was a void there and I thought it was a good thing to fill that void."