When a soldier is killed in action, part of his identity seems forever lost to the world at large. It becomes buried beneath a rank, hidden behind the hard eyes and set jaw of a military portrait. He is remembered in history as “Private First Class” John Smith, rather than, say, John Smith from Cedarburg, Wisconsin, who never missed a Milwaukee Brewers home game, who made a full-time living as a postal carrier and who left behind a wife and two kids. Chris Bettencourt’s We Are is a nontraditional war memorial that sets out to honor the coalition forces in Iraq by portraying each of the 2,797 who’ve died with simple, personal portraits. Each postage stamp sized entry in the installation contains a black-and-white photograph of the deceased, along with his or her name. These entries will be scattered along the streets claimed by the Infringement Festival. No age, rank, hometown or date of death will be provided, reminding viewers that they, too, were everyday people, no different from the men and women we pass in the street daily.

Bettencourt will be updating the installment as new casualties are reported, reminding viewers that the conflict is ongoing, that the problem is a current one and that steps must be taken to stop the death. By spreading the installation along the streets, Bettencourt hopes to keep her subjects at the forefront of viewers’ minds. It’s not an installation that is visited once and so can be compartmentalized and later forgotten. Rather the deceased will be all around us and therefore a part of our lives.