UC Student Puts the "Charge!" Into Art to Get a Charge Out of It Date: May 23, 2000 By: Mary Bridget Reilly Phone: (513) 556-1824 Archive: General News An artist rushes in where soldiers once feared to tread. That describes University of Cincinnati fine art graduate student Mark Shafer who will soon travel half way round the globe to recapture what it was like to invade a strongly defended island during the height of World War II's bloody battles in the Pacific. Shafer will lead 20 college students from the island of Saipan in his art campaign, under the course title "You Are Here: Retelling the History of the Invasions of Saipan and Tinian Through Drama and Art." "We will make our landing in a fishing boat at Saipan's Sugar Dock just as the Americans did. Each of us in the group will have a well-researched role. Some will be U.S. Marines, Japanese, the local people who experienced that time 56 years ago," said Shafer, who will begin his project Wednesday, July 19, 2000, in the wake of the anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Saipan which began June, 11, 1944. Those roles will include Japanese Vice Admiral Chuichi Nagumo, U.S. Admiral Ernest King, as well as Saipan Bishop Tomas Commacho. Each student will record his thoughts and impressions with photographs and sketch books of what it must have been like for the person he plays. At each battle site visited (including Sugar Dock, Tinian City, Isley Field, Purple Heart Ridge, Death Valley and Sugar Loaf Hill), Shafer will have a variety of support and materials on hand. These include not only munition identification books, military maps, history texts, but local people who lived through the invasion. "We'll be telling a story. We will descend upon a site in character, each member offering unique perspectives about their character's activities during the U.S. invasion. We'll examine how war has been depicted in art from the Greeks, Romans and Mongols, from Leonardo's drawings of weapons and war machines to Goya's depictions of atrocities and Picasso's "Guernica" as well as art of the Vietnam War era. We'll present our work at the museum in Garapan, Saipan, or the art center there," said Shafer, 34, of Anderson Township. For Shafer, it's a "return" in more ways than one. Two uncles participated in the brutal month-long fighting for the island. "My uncle Pat was a corpsman in the first wave to hit Saipan's beaches. Another uncle [Harry] was a marine infantry man in the fighting there," he explained, adding that he has a great deal of material concerning them: discussions with a third, surviving uncle as well as letters Pat and Harry wrote home, sometimes quite literally, from fox holes. Shafer conceived of the idea for the course, funded by a UC Wolfstein Travel Fellowship of $2,500 and by a $1,000 grant from Saipan's Commonwealth Council for the Arts, after teaching art and music to elementary students on the island (in a school with a 500-pound unexploded bomb beneath it) from 1996-98. He lived in a house on the very same beach his uncles had stormed as young men. "I would go around the islands. The gun emplacements, downed Zeros, burned landing craft, shelled buildings...live anti- tank mines...grenades in the sand boxes at the local schools...are still around, in plain view. On a nearby island called Peleliu, I saw an 'unintentional installation' if you will: a perfectly placed circle of vintage Coca-Cola bottles," Shafer said. Shafer said that moment of looking at the Coke bottles served as an awakening. "I know what must have happened. In front of the cave a little distance from the bottles lay live Japanese grenades. (They cannot be safely retrieved because they are acid-based and very unstable.) This had been part of the fight known as Bloody Nose Ridge for a nearby airfield that was needed for the invasion of the Philippines. There was heavy soot atop the cave because the Japanese had been 'flame-thrown' to death. That's why they didn t get the chance to use those grenades. I knew, then, that the Americans, their job done, had sat in a circle and had their Cokes. The island is hot, and they were thirsty. Then, they left their accidental installation." That moment set Shafer off on an art career devoted to 'found objects' and how they tell a story. He loves seeing and exploring what a story meant in the past and what it means now. It's exploration that can take place on a battle field or in an ancestral home, he says. He describes "You Are Here," offered via Northern Mariana College where he will be a visiting artist, as more than an art course that will teach formal analysis, though it will do that as well. "This integrates art and history. History is perspective, and I want them to take on, study, speak and dress their roles so they'll gain a physical understanding and feel history through analytical and artistic activity. I want the students to compare and contrast their own personalities to that of their assigned character. That teaches empathy for a person," added Shafer. In addition to reliving the invasion of Saipan and other significant battles on the island, Shafer and his group will also visit nearby islands on similar missions, including the nearly island of Tinian, which was the first site bombarded with napalm when U.S. forces began shelling the island in June 1944. "You Are Here" runs till August 18. Working with Shafer on the project are Joe Guerrero from Saipan's Historical Preservation Office, Robert Hunter of Saipan's Commonwealth Council for the Arts, as well as Melody Actouka and Sam McPhetres of Northern Mariana College. Shafer's own art work to be created during this time -- wood carvings, photographs, sketches as well as video and audio recordings -- will be displayed Sept. 24-Oct. 23 in the Suzanna Terrill Gallery, downtown Cincinnati.