Over 2,000 Toy Soldiers Invade Design College

University of Cincinnati students Elizabeth Ward and Jessica Sharpe are on a mission:  To raise awareness of the many issues associated with the current war in Iraq.

To that end, the two seniors from UC’s College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) aimed to make the best use of their recently completed “final” for their winter-quarter Installation Art course taught by Matthew Lynch, assistant professor of fine art.

Working as a team, Sharpe and Ward tied together over 2,000 finger-sized toy soldiers in long strands and then, on the night of Tuesday, March 19, they draped the strands along walls close to one of the main DAAP entrances.  The pair, along with  industrial design major Hayes Shanesy, a friend who volunteered to help them, worked from 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. to position their troops.

Said Ward, “As a piece, it’s not necessarily a pro- or anti-war statement.  It speaks to how far removed we are from the situation.  It’s about the troops that we have over there right now and our inability to understand what they’re going through.  It’s difficult to come to terms with.”

Ward and Sharpe, both majoring in fine arts,  canvassed Cincinnati’s dollar stores, Big Lots stores and toy stores for about three days to buy up every small, plastic soldier they could find.  “We got as many toy soldiers as we could accumulate.  We cleared out the area…wiped out the stores’ supplies,” said Ward.  Then, they deliberately mounted their exhibit the night before the expiration of President George Bush’s ultimatum deadline to Saddam Hussein. 

Their work will remain in place at DAAP until the end of hostilities in Iraq.