Com-Central.net

Landsverk · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Apr 10, 2010 Posts: 48

A Norwegian Artist present an unusual art project in Oslo on Friday.
Two Centurion Tanks from Sweden painted in white with the text "Yes" versus "No".

www.nrk.no/kultur-og-u.../1.7802214

Quite interesting - if you think deeper about these two tanks arguing during a conflict today, tomorrow or perhaps 50 years ago.
Who is "yes" and who is "no"?

The artist Morten Traavik was resposible for "Miss Landmine" a few years ago.

JWB2 · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jan 25, 2006 Posts: 199

The "yes" tank is the invader and the "no" tank is the defender who will not give in.

I really and truly do NOT want to step on anybodies toes but the "Miss Landmine" is warporn to me.

Landsverk · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Apr 10, 2010 Posts: 48

The "yes" tank is the invader and the "no" tank is the defender who will not give in.

Or vice versa...

Landsverk · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Apr 10, 2010 Posts: 48

Update:
www.koro.no/en/project...om/yes+no/

Pzkpfw-e · ***Power User*** Offline Joined: Jul 21, 2010 Posts: 1202

What a load of bollocks!
At least it's not wasted my tax money.

Doug_Kibbey · Posted: Sun Sep 25, 2011 4:24 pm Post subject: Re: Unusual Tank art project

On the same level, and having the same smell as the "Miss Landmine" uhh..."project". Just another "artist" attempting to project their view of all military organizations, endeavors and service people as unenlightened simpletons who only know how to resolve differences by childlike means, in this case force of arms. Makes no distinction between aggressors and defenders....those that would defend against aggression are just as infantile as those that engage it, etc. etc. Undoubtedly has lived a comfortable life far away from direct threat and under the protection of some of those "children".

Miss Landmine also makes no distinction between responsible military use (fields that are properly mapped and then de-mined after hostilities) and the wanton and random placement of mines by organizations that use terror of the populace as a matter of policy. Traavik is just another self-absorbed, self-promoting individual (I would not dignify him with the title "artist") who uses the provocation and voyeurism to promote, well....himself. For example...

Pisey Ly of the Women’s Network for Unity in Phnom Penh disagreed. Speaking with AWID, she explained that the contestants were used as tools to draw public attention to the issue but did not receive actual benefits from their participation. “Aside from being sat for make up, holding flowers, smiling uncomfortably and preparing themselves for the photographers’ gaze and press interviews,” she said, “the participants did not receive the kind of education, health care, jobs, social supports and legal protection from discrimination to make their lives better.” Instead, she remarked, their beauty was “used” and claimed as “empowerment.” For her, empowerment would not be possible without local participation in the design of and ownership over the program.

Another women’s rights advocate, who worked directly with the pageant participants and asked to remain anonymous, said that the girls went along with it because a foreign organization asked them to do so – reiterating women’s rights advocates concerns that this is yet another project in which transnational power dynamics go un-interrogated. She reported that the pageant’s organizers claimed that they wanted to show the world that girls without limbs are still beautiful and have survived the awful things that have happened to them. The girls thought foreigners would not discriminate against “girls like them” and thus trusted them with their best interests.

This anonymous source also remarked that there was no training or any sessions that prepared the girls to understand what was happening and what it meant, apart from when some local advocates like herself helped the foreigners translate to the girls what they wanted them to do and why.

www.genderacrossborder.../02/12848/