Kathy Kelly’s peace activism has led her to war zones and prisons over the past 35 years. She lived in Baghdad throughout the 2003 Shock and Awe bombing, and in Gaza during the 2009 Operation Cast Lead. With Voices for Creative Nonviolence, she has visited Pakistan to interview victims of U.S. drone attacks and, from 2010–2019, traveled 25 times to Afghanistan, where she and her companions learned from ordinary people about casualties of U.S. war and occupation. She served three months in prison, in 2016, for attempting to deliver a letter and a loaf of bread to the commander of Whiteman Air Force Base regarding drone attacks against Afghan civilians. She co-coordinates the Ban Killer Drones campaign, bankillerdrones.org

Remote Control: Surveying Drones and Culture Today

This event is part of the symposium Remote Control: Surveying Drones and Culture Today, organized by High Line Art and the Vera List Center for Art and Politics at The New School, in collaboration with writer and researcher Arthur Holland Michel. The symposium is convened by High Line Art in the context of artist Sam Durant‘s High Line Plinth commission Untitled (drone) and the Vera List Center's As for Protocols Focus Theme and was preceded by As for Protocols Seminar 7: Drones and the Bird’s-Eye View, September 20, 2021. 

The Vera List Center’s participation in Remote Control is made possible, in part, by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Arts, the Ford Foundation, and the Kettering Fund, as well as the members of the Vera List Center Board and The New School.

Lead support for High Line Art comes from Amanda and Don Mullen. Major support is provided by Shelley Fox Aarons and Philip E. Aarons, The Brown Foundation, Inc. of Houston, and Charina Endowment Fund. Additional support is provided by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. High Line Art is supported in part, with a grant from the National Endowment of the Arts and with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the New York City Council, under the leadership of Speaker Corey Johnson.

Major support for the High Line Plinth is provided by members of the High Line Plinth Committee and contemporary art leaders committed to realizing major commissions and engaging in the public success of the Plinth: Shelley Fox Aarons and Philip E. Aarons, Jennifer and Jonathan Allan Soros, Elizabeth Belfer, Suzanne Deal Booth, Fairfax Dorn, Steve Ells, Kerianne Flynn, Andy and Christine Hall, Hermine Riegerl Heller and David B. Heller, J. Tomilson and Janine Hill, The Holly Peterson Foundation, Annie Hubbard and Harvey Schwartz, Miyoung Lee and Neil Simpkins, Dorothy Lichtenstein, Amanda and Don Mullen, Douglas Oliver and Sherry Brous, Mario Palumbo and Stefan Gargiulo, Susan and Stephen Scherr, Susan and David Viniar, and Anonymous.