I was captivated by John Woods' art. The first thing I encountered upon entering the exhibit was a quote "maybe the time has come for creative photography to encompass the large problems without propaganda or journalism. I was intrigued by this, and wondered how that concept was going to become realized through his art.

The piece that really struck a chord with me is the twin pictures of the cactus and the nuclear waste cooling plant. At first glance, you can readily see his intentions, how he played with both images to create two natural, and industrial doppelgangers. Upon further reflection however, altering and pairing these two images creates extraordinary meaning. The cactus holds water (life) on the inside, and that water nourishes and sustains life in the surrounding barren environment of the desert. Diametrically opposed to that, the cooling plant contains nuclear waste (death) on the inside, which, if ever released, would turn its surroundings into a desert wasteland. I think it is also interesting to point out that Doppelgangers are believed to be an omen for death.

I also really enjoyed the piece depicting the mai lai massacre. The massacre was carried out by a unit of the U.S. Army on March 16, 1968 where 347 to 504 unarmed citizens of South Vietnam, all of whom were civilians and a majority of whom were women, children, and elderly people.

Many of the victims were sexually abused, beaten, tortured, and some of the bodies were found mutilated. While 26 US soldiers were initially charged with criminal offenses for their actions at Mai Lai, only one, William Calley, was convicted. He served only three years of an original life sentence, while on house arrest.

I saw the image as a scene unfolding and coming into focus. There was a deliberate blurring of events by the government, who knew what the outcome would be if these images were ever made public. Woods' art opened up another bag of bones from the cellar of the oval office and the scene that the government tried so hard to hide--was finally exposed.

The beauty of Woods' aesthetic is that his works are not statements, they are open ended questions. His art becomes a conduit for awareness, and what we do with that, is entirely up to us. He may not be able to change what our hands do, but at least he can say that he has opened our eyes.