home away from home

installation view - Hunter Times Square Gallery - December 2010

From the start of the current U.S. led war on Iraq and ensuing occupation the United States Military has been
engaging in a tactic of re-naming streets for military use in the occupied areas. The first platoon to be
stationed in an area creates names in English for the Arabic street names. The Theatre Commander holds a
meeting, upon entering a new area, in which they will assign, seemingly arbitrary, words and numbers to
streets and districts in the area they are now responsible for. Some examples of known categories used in
Iraq since the 2003 invasion are names of: trees, fruits, soldier’s wives, sports teams and U.S. states.
Another category of naming is using the names of soldiers who have died in combat as away of memorializing
them. These names are printed or hand written on the Military maps and replace the original Arabic names.
This tactic is a part of OP-SEC (Operation Secrecy.) By using English words instead of Arabic the military is
encoding locations and also enabling the soldiers to learn to navigate the areas without having to learn Arabic.
Home Away From Home is an archive of visual and data-based research contemplating the idea of bringing parts
of American culture to a foreign place of military occupation.