The Nap Sack Project: A Critical Arts-Based Inquiry into the Precarious Bodies of War
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Abstract
The Nap Sack Project is a critical arts-based inquiry into the social construction of war veteran/civilian in American culture. Using art-making as a critical collaborative act, this research searches to define and intervene into the war veteran/civilian binary. This thesis will explore how this binary is structured through forms of recognition in our culture. These forms of recognition have become normative acts or annual celebrations like Veterans Day and Memorial Day but, as I present here, do not lend themselves to recognizing the bodies of war as precarious. The art produced as well as the art-making events challenge these forms of recognition. By challenging how we as a community function within the war veteran/civilian binary, I, through the use of the Nap Sack Project, try to answer the call for interdependence in American culture and define the bodies of war as precarious.