Wafaa Billal

8pm March 8th to 8pm March 9th, 2010

…and Counting:

Tattoo is latest medium for acclaimed Iraqi artist Wafaa Bilal in New York live performance

Wafaa Bilal's brother Haji was killed by a missile at a checkpoint in their hometown of Kufa, Iraq in 2004. Bilal feels the pain of both American and Iraqi families who’ve lost loved ones in the war, but the deaths of Iraqis like his brother are largely invisible to the American public.Where: Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts
Blackburn 20/20
323 W39th Street 5th Floor NY, NY 10018
Contact: Phillip Sanders, phil@efa1.org, 212-563-5855
Artist contact: w.wafaa@gmail.com
Project Director: Christine OHeron:christineoheron@gmail.com, (860) 782-1030

…and Counting addresses this double standard as Bilal turns his own body – in a 24-hour live performance -- into a canvas, his back tattooed with a borderless map of Iraq covered with one dot for each Iraqi and American casualty near the cities where they fell. The 5,000 dead American soldiers are represented by red dots (permanent visible ink), and the 100,000 Iraqi casualties are represented by dots of green UV ink, seemingly invisible unless under black light. During the performance people from all walks of life read off the names of the dead.

Also, Bilal is asking each visitor to donate $1 which will go to the group Rally for Iraq, to fund scholarships for Americans and Iraqis who lost parents in the war. Based on official numbers of casualties, one dollar for each would mean $105,000 in scholarship money.

(text and images taken from the following web site: http://www.wafaabilal.com/index.html)