Multimedia Installation
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1964-1973,
The Secret War.
Over two million tons of ordnance.
A planeload every eight minutes.
For nine years straight.
Cluster munitions:
designed to disperse,
to multiply impact.
30% of the bombs dropped did not explode!
They remain.
They shape daily life today,
decades after the war ended.
In fields,
in forests,
in villages.
Millions of UXOs (unexploded ordinance) embedded in the ground.
Among them: “bombies.”
Small. Spherical.
Visible. Reachable.
Mistaken for toys.
Daily life: a negotiation.
Working the field carries risk,
Playing on the ground is threatening.
Since the war ended,
more than 20,000 people have been killed or injured.
40% of them children.
Bombies mistaken for toys.
That war is over,
Those bombs are not.
Cluster munitions continue to be used.
Closer than before.
Somewhere, near you:
bombies.
Millions of UXOs.
XOXO to U from the most bombed country in the world, per capita: Laos.
Documentation
We include here several images taken in Laos in 2023, on a trip from the North to the South of the country, to illustrate how traces of a war that took place decades ago can still be encountered everywhere. Fragments of the conflict reappear embedded in public and domestic spaces and throughout the built environment: in everyday objects and in various improvised forms of reusing bomb and ammunition remnants, for both aesthetic or practical reasons. (Photos by Cinty Ionescu and David Grohe).
About the installation
Bombies is a multimedia installation by Cinty Ionescu and David Grohe that investigates the ways violence continues to exist in landscapes and everyday life long after the end of armed conflicts. The work originates from the persistent presence of unexploded ordnance (UXO) and from the tension between the material evidence left behind by the United States bombing campaign during the nine years of the “Secret War” in Laos and the official narratives shaped by omission, control, and denial. At the same time, the installation references the continued use of cluster munitions in contemporary conflicts, including those unfolding in our immediate proximity.
Bombies is the term used in Laos to describe small spherical unexploded submunitions that are mistaken by children for toys. At the same time, the work refers to the use of cluster munitions in contemporary conflicts, including those unfolding in our immediate proximity.
Through the overlapping of image, object, text, and sound, the installation constructs a space of traces in which what remains hidden continues to shape the present and affect communities for whom danger becomes inseparable from everyday life and, ultimately, from economic precarity transmitted across generations.
ROMÂNĂ:
Bombies
1964–1973
/ Războiul Secret /
peste două milioane de tone de muniție.
/ Un avion încărcat la fiecare opt minute.
/ Timp de nouă ani. Consecutivi.
Muniții cu dispersie:
/ concepute să se împrăștie,
să se multiplice.
/ 30% dintre bombe nu au explodat. Încă.
Ele rămân.
Modelează viața de zi cu zi,
/ decenii după încheierea războiului.
În pământ, /
în păduri,
/ în sate.
Milioane de muniții neexplodate în pământ.
Printre ele: „bombies.” (bombițe)
/ Micuțe. Rotunde.
Vizibile./ La îndemână.
/Luate drept jucării.
Viața de zi cu zi: o tatonare. /
Unde munca la câmp este un risc,
/ iar ieșitul afară e chiar jocul cu focul.
După finalul războiului,
peste 20.000 de oameni au fost uciși sau răniți.
/ 40% dintre ei sunt copii.
Acel război a încetat,
/ Bombele continuă.
Munițiile cu dispersie sunt folosite și acum,
/ mai aproape de noi ca oricând.
Undeva, pe lângă tine:
/ bombies. /
Milioane de muniții neexplodate.
XOXO din cea mai bombardată țară din lume: Laos.