This book by artist Herman Asselberghs and philosopher Dieter Lesage focuses on the antiwar protests of February 15, 2003, which took place in cities across the world and attracted millions of participants. Asselberghs and Lesage suggest that 2/15 could serve as “an alternative for the iconic image” of the 9/11 attacks. Most of the book consists of a photo sequence of the protests, rendered in murky, grainy blacks and greys—each image is nearly indistinguishable. At the end of the book is an essay about the anti-imperial movement, rendered in cryptic, nearly science-fictional language.
The distortion of the images of this protest, as well as its description in such opaque language may indicate some ambivalence on the part of the artists, looking back on an important movement from 2013, after governments ignored the marchers’ demands and continued to wage war in the Middle East.
