Military drones are scary (yet technologically impressive) machines that the world doesn't know what to think about yet. When they get the job done on baddies they're awesome, but when innocent lives are lost, some people take a step back and ask, "Is it worth it?"
Even though we know that normal people have been killed by drones, the fact that their faces aren't shown on our television screens and newspapers makes it easier to ignore. The families of the victims don't have that luxury. An artist collective in Pakistan decided to "challenge this insensitivity as well as raise awareness of civilian casualties" by creating the #NotABugSplat photo project. Inspired by JR's Inside Out project, the artists installed a huge photograph in a field of a child who lost both parents and two siblings in drone strikes. The name of the project comes from the gross military slang for a person killed on the ground because that's what it resembles on their video feed.
The #NotABugSplat website says that in the Khyber Pukhtoonkhwa region of Pakistan, there have been 350+ drone strikes that have killed over 3,500 people, including more than 200 children. Their hope for the future is that the project "will create empathy and introspection amongst drone operators, and will create dialogue amongst policy makers, eventually leading to decisions that will save innocent lives."
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[via Guardian]
