William Chan served in the U.S. Army during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. Ten Years After Iraq is the journey of many veterans who have to reconcile the pride of one's service with the outcome of the war in which they fought. It is a plea for individual release, and a hope for his country to reflect on its past decisions.
"Like an arrow, this small book hits its target fast and hard, but so quietly that it’s hard to understand the quivering emotional vibration left in its wake. 27 images shot by a soldier on a tour of duty in Iraq are punctuated by 76 words (80 including the title) that transform mundane daily moments from 10-year-old memories into a contemporary challenge to answer the outstanding question with global significance, 'why?'"
- Stephen Mayes
"...Ten Years After Iraq, one of the most devastating comments on the war that I have ever seen. He is a veteran of the Iraq war and has emerged with a simple, eloquent perspective that will stop any thoughtful person in their tracks."
- Sebastian Junger
"William Chan’s Ten Years After Iraq has a plaintive quality. It is a small book full of marvelous contradictions; it is modest and immoderate, intimately private yet welcoming. The images are reproduced in a small candid size and offer views that mostly look to distant people and places as if taken through the window of a moving APC. Or they try to capture infinite horizons. The text offers a not completely enigmatic plea for release, a soldier sorting himself out 10 years after. This is an artist who risks things."
- W.M. Hunt
Awards
International Center of Photography Infinity Award Nominee
Photobook Award Maribor Runner-Up
Unveil'd Photobook Award Finalist
Tokyo International Photo Award Winner
Exhibtions
Phoenix Art Museum
Borough Road Gallery (London South Bank University)
Ithaca College
Magnum Foundation
Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University Istanbul
Carnegie Museum of Art
Griffin Museum of Photography
Fotografski muzej Maribor Slovenia
Collections
Brooklyn Museum Library
Tim Hetherington Library Bronx Documentary Center,
Harvard University Fine Arts Library
International Center of Photography Library
The Metropolitan Museum of Art Thomas Watson Library
Tate Modern Library
Yale University Robert Haas Family Arts Library
Book Details
10.5 × 7 inches
62 pages
Hardbound
Edition of 1,000
Published by Llewelyn Editions
ISBN: 978-0-9904623-2-3
$35.00
Book can be purchased at Photo-Eye, Strand, BookDummyPress, McNally Jackson, Printed Matter, MoMA PS1 bookstore and many other bookstores.