Bedrooms of the fallen
I read about Bedrooms of The Fallen over the weekend, a hard-hitting war photography project by Australian photographer and writer Ashley Gilbertson. His series of poignant images depict the bedrooms of young soldiers who died in Iraq or Afghanistan, putting into perspective the ages of the deceased and of course the pointlessness of it all.
Photograph by Ashley Gilbertson
Photograph by Ashley Gilbertson
Photograph by Ashley Gilbertson
The images are so domestic and the removal of violence from what’s still in the genre of war photography, makes them very affecting. It’s easy for us to identify with those bedrooms, to picture the age of the persons who hung a pin board, collected posters, even had teddy bears, and tragically, to imagine the families who have turned them into private memorials.
You can order a book of the full project (not quite released) here or visit Ashley Gilbertson’s website for more in the series.
I have just looked at these images and they have made me shiver. You are so right that they are so ‘domestic’ and so ‘normal’. We have all this media feeding us other images that we completely forget they are just young boys with posters on their walls and soft toys on their beds. It has really stopped me in my tracks today. Very hard hitting.
Echoing the above comment. These rooms look just like the two rooms vacated in my home, fortunately for me as a parent for them to go to Uni not war. Xx
An original and powerful reportage.