Graduation project
Gulf War Illness
Damir Zhaksilikov
A medical ventilator inside a dust chamber is synced to a film about the US military’s relationship to dust and its harmful effects on innocent people.
The Yuma Proving Ground (YPG) in Arizona is a primary US Army test site, selected for its resemblance to Middle Eastern desert terrains. In contrast to the elaborate weapons produced here for dust-laden environments, Gulf War Illness uses declassified YPG design guidelines to build a low-cost medical ventilator. The ventilator is tested inside a ‘dust aggravation’ chamber, commonly used at YPG to test weapon durability. A film synced to these tests explores the military’s relationship with dust, revealing parallel harms inflicted on the respiratory systems of innocent individuals in Iraq and the US. By creating a medical device from weapon designs, the project subverts the system that placed these individuals on opposite sides of a decades-long conflict.