Hundreds of shoes and boots lined the Quincy Wong Center, located in the Wabash Campus Building, 623 S. Wabash Ave., on April 13 and 14. Rows of combat boots with memorabilia such as newspaper clippings, handwritten letters and photographs, along with names and ages, were attached to the footwear.

American Friends Service Committee, an international social justice organization,  Critical Encounters and Columbia organization Art Activists united to feature the “Eyes Wide Open” exhibit.  The exhibition featuredmore than 207 pairs of boots and more than 100 pairs of shoes to represent U.S. military casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq,  along with Afghan and Iraqi civilian casualties.

The boots are representative of the U.S. military personnel and the shoes illustrate the civilians of the foreign regions.  The exhibition was created in January 2004 by the American Friends Service Committee and first opened in Chicago’s Federal Plaza.

The national exhibit was last displayed on Memorial Day weekend in 2007 with more than 3,400 pairs of boots, and has since been divided into state displays,  Columbia’s exhibit as an example, and has passed through various cities in the country. The state exhibits collectively include more than 5,000 pairs of boots.

Erin Polley, program associate for American Friends Service Committee and 2008 Columbia graduate, began working with the exhibition as part of the national organization team. She said working with the exhibit is an extremely emotional experience because of the nature of the display, but she is thankful for the overwhelming support that volunteers give to the exhibit despite controversy.

“Of course there are some people who have counter-protested us, but we’ve always approached it as a memorial and as something that provides space for people to come and grieve over the human cost of war,” Polley said. “In all the years we’ve been doing this, people have been overwhelmingly supportive.

Either way, we’re getting across. There are always going to be people that are going to disagree with  you.”

Polley added that when the exhibition first opened, it originally had the boots in one large pile, but have since organized them individually to honor each pair as a singular memorial. She said the boots are set up in various ways at the different locations, but she prefers to set them up in a labyrinth-like manner.

“There’s something powerful about walking in a labyrinth,” Polley said. “People get into a meditation looking at the names and walking through that.”

Madelyn George, student organizer of Art Activists at Columbia, said she found the exhibit moving because it hit so close to home.

“The [troops] are from Illinois and you can see as you walk around they’re from towns really close to here, which I think is striking in a different way,” George said. “They could be people you might have known or run into and their families are still living nearby. It brings it home even further.”

George said she visited an exhibit in 2005 that displayed shoes which represented the civilian lives lost overseas, which greatly impacted her personally and made her want to continue the activism she is currently involved in.  She added that this exhibition is important to have at Columbia so that students see the visual image of the human cost of warfare.

“I think it’s something people need to see,” George said. “What works well for everyone is these visual images that give everyone a personal and emotional reaction to something that could not be seen otherwise. What you see are representations of human lives and the fact that this affects people in their gut, in a way,  is also very important.”

Meghann Thom, senior film and video major, found the exhibition to be “extremely disturbing.”

“Since it’s a volunteer [military], the majority of us, if any,  aren’t actually in it, so it’s important to show that people are fighting somewhere even if we don’t support the war,” Thom said. “There are actually humans that we’re losing.”

Not all students initially knew what the exhibition stood for, but those who did were taken aback upon the realization of its meaning. David Charry, freshman film and video major, agreed with Thom that it is an essential showing to have on campus, and that he was surprised when he realized what the exhibit was.

“I had no idea what the shoes were,” Charry said. “I knew it had something to do with Iraq and Afghanistan, but it wasn’t until I saw a newspaper article attached to a shoe [that] I realized what they were about. I had to take a few steps back from the shock and awe of realizing what the exhibit is.”

Though the exhibit has been displayed in cities across the nation, Charry also felt the fact the troops were from the Chicagoland area impacted him greatly.

“These are shoes that represent people who’ve walked all of our streets and we need to feel this connection with them and sort of walk amongst them in here,” Charry said.

For more information on the “Eyes Wide Open” exhibition, visit Afsc.org/Eyes.