For Love and Peace
by Leah Erica Chung
The Behind Story
In my junior year of high school, I was studying Wilfred Owen’s poems in my english class and came across one of his most famous works “Dulce et Decorum Est.” I usually don’t like poems but this one was just too good to simply read. It’s about the pity of war and how so many young lives are wasted on the battlefield. Owen was a soldier himself who fought in WWI, which is what makes his poems so raw. He enlisted a young, optimistic man but quickly realized how himself and every other young adolescent “soldier” had been deceived by the false glorification of war. There was no glory in drowning in poison gas with froth spewing out of your mouth.
Even while studying the World Wars in history I never understood war. Maybe it’s because I lack the necessary political and historical knowledge but I just never understood it. I just don’t get how after the first one that killed about 6.8 million civilians alone and proved to the rest of the world how war should be avoided at all costs, there was another one just 21 years later - the improved sequel with more efficient, action-packed ways to kill as many people as possible. It really boggles my mind. It’s like a sick game to see how many people each side can kill before both sides think they should stop.
I don’t care what anybody says about protecting the nation, eliminating enemies, etc. Absolutely nothing justifies killing fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, wives, and husbands often by the most inhuman means just to prove military prowess, to fulfill a political ideology, or whatever.
Even while studying the World Wars in history I never understood war. Maybe it’s because I lack the necessary political and historical knowledge but I just never understood it. I just don’t get how after the first one that killed about 6.8 million civilians alone and proved to the rest of the world how war should be avoided at all costs, there was another one just 21 years later - the improved sequel with more efficient, action-packed ways to kill as many people as possible. It really boggles my mind. It’s like a sick game to see how many people each side can kill before both sides think they should stop.
I don’t care what anybody says about protecting the nation, eliminating enemies, etc. Absolutely nothing justifies killing fathers, sons, mothers, daughters, wives, and husbands often by the most inhuman means just to prove military prowess, to fulfill a political ideology, or whatever.
The above posters were created on Adobe Illustrator using images of various weaponry I found online. It’s supposed to be ironic as the guns form a heart and the peace sign. I chose to use graphics because it’s a medium that’s often used in the public domain, especially for mass media advertising. Graphics are meant to be succinct and catchy so that as many people can obtain the necessary information that the ad is trying to convey in one glance. My hope was that people can look at the posters at a glance like they would any other commercial ad on the streets and realize the condemnatory message behind it.
Exhibition
Another important part of completing this project was the implementation of the posters. I chose to display them in a public space where there are constantly many people. I chose one of the busiest college streets in Seoul, Shinchon, where buildings are covered in colorful graphic print ads. Thanks to the help of my model friend Julie Kim, I was able to integrate the posters (which I had printed on large banners) in the streets, on billboards, in subways, and amidst the people just passing the streets.
Thank you.
