"Collateral Damage"
Ink on paper, Pine frame
Each page 8.5” x 11” x approximately 90 pages
With “Collateral Damage,” I commemorate the lives of civilians killed in the war in Iraq. Each civilian life lost is represented with an “X.” Of a total of 600,000 civilians killed as estimated by the New York Times (October 10, 2006), the pages in the Place Gallery exhibit tallied over 300,000. Each piece is set in an unfinished pine frame. The final exhibition will fill a room completely.
This work is also performed in public as an intervention in an attempt to draw attention to the daily catastrophe and to encourage dialog. An intervention consists of me simply sitting at a table marking pages with X’s. A copy of the New York Times article is on hand.
Place Gallery 2009. Photograph: Drew Anderson
Place Gallery, 2009
Intervention, Times Square, New York, 2008
Midterm elections have historically low turnout in the United States. Plazm encouraged voter engagement with a fun, participatory project leading up to the November 2018 election.
Bend Design Conference and Design Week Portland asked me to sit on a Citizen Designer panel. At the sold-out event, we set up a station where people could get their fists painted and photographed. Voter Power was self-distributed through social shares of still images and video, then picked up by the AIGA Design for Democracy Initiative and Oregon Must Vote.
More than 49% of the voting-eligible population cast a ballot—the highest turnout for a midterm since 1914. The results broke all previous records for Congressional diversity. A record 117 women won seats; 42 of them were women of color, and three identify as LGBTQ. This cohort also contains the first two Native American women, first Muslim woman, and the youngest female Representative ever to serve in the US Congress.
Creative Direction / Design: Niko Courtelis / Joshua Berger Plazm
Photography: Sumaya Agha
Makeup Artist: Amelia Rasmussen-Berger
Soundtrack: Eric W. Mast
What does a word mean when it is used so widely to manipulate public opinion. How do we respond to the feelings of violation, theft, paranoia, and grief that terror wrecks on our society? There are two distinct facets to this project, one a fine art piece for gallery viewing, the second a street graphic designed to fit over newspaper box windows. I am interested in recontextualizing images and words to reveal new meanings.
“Untitled”
Version #1: Silkscreen and Monoprint, 15” x 22”, 2004
“Untitled”
Version #2: Lithography on adhesive backed paper, 8.5” x 11”
Printed + applied to various surfaces around the city, 2005
Photograph: Jeremy Bittermann
Gallery Homeland, 2010
8.5” x 11” stickers available to take
“These Colors”
Silkscreen and Monoprint, 15” x 22”, 2005
“These Colors Don’t Run” is a familiar slogan accompanying images of the United States flag. It’s often used by the right wing, and becomes a rallying cry for war and xenophobia. I am in the process of expanding this project to a public environment. Screen-printed posters using water-based inks are posted on the street and documented as it rains and they “run.”
"Bomb, Bomb, Bomb"
18 x 24 silkscreen, 2008
Joshua Berger & Thomas Bradley
Burning Well No. 2
8.5" x 11" sticker, offset litho
2004
Like father, like son. As George Bush Jr. began his invasion and bombing of Iraq, I reprised a sticker that I made more than a decade earlier.
Burning Well No. 1
8.5" x 11" sticker, offset litho
1991
“The Fall of Saigon”
Silkscreen and Monoprint, 15” x 22”, 2005
On May 1, 2005 the New York Times ran a photo on the front page of an army of marchers in Saigon pushing shopping carts. It appears capitalism and democracy are finally victorious in Vietnam.
“Fifth Column”
16” x 24” Silkscreen, 2004
Through his actions, George Bush has made all of America a target.
This piece was censored by the arts publication that originally commissioned it, and subsequently rejected by a printer based on its political content. Next it was printed as the subject of an article in a different arts journal who was warned against reproducing the image by the ACLU. The final version was created for the “Sedition” group show at the Mark Woolley Gallery.
"Mittopoly"
Digital art, 2012
Joshua Berger & Gus Nicklos
"Trumpenstein"
Digital art, 2016
Adaptation of John Heartfield's photomontage "Adolf, Superman"
For the two children at the border
Felipe Alonzo-Gomez
I have an eight year old son.
—No, actually I do. He is eight.
I am an eight year old son.
We are all eight year old sons.
Jakelin Caal
I had a seven year old daughter.
—She is grown now.
I am a seven year old daughter.
We are all seven year old daughters.
La vida La vida
A single life
Is all of
Life
J. Berger
12.28.18
Absolut Oregon, for Adbusters magazine, 1995
Anti-War.us
A website dedicated to the collection and free distribution of anti-war graphic material founded in 2002 in during the run-up to the US invasion of Iraq.
Site concept and direction: Joshua Berger
Site design: Jon Steinhorst
Interface design: Anthony Ramos
Statement from release: “We believe that as creative individuals trained in methods of mass communication, we can make a real difference by providing clear anti-war messages. Material on this site are created voluntarily, submitted from all points on the globe, and distributed free to activists around the world.”
Image above is a screenshot from the website. Image below is an exhibition in 2003 at Optic Nerve gallery which collected the hundreds of protest images submitted.
