Matt Kenyon, 2015 TED Fellow and U-M Stamps School of Art & Design professor presented his “Notepad” project to an audience at the 2015 Global TED conference that took place in Vancouver, BC in March of this year. Image credit: Ryan LashANN ARBOR—Artist Matt Kenyon is now featured on the TED website for his provocative talk about how he snuck into the U.S. a list of Iraqi civilians who died during the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

Kenyon, an associate professor at the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design, was one of the “game-changing thinkers” who spoke during the TED 2015 global conference that took place in Vancouver, British Columbia earlier this year.

Kenyon, one of 21 TED 2015 Fellows hailing from 15 countries, discussed his Notepad project that was recently added to the collection of the Museum of Modern Art (NYC) during a six-and-a-half minute talk.

Notepad looks like an everyday yellow legal pad of paper, however, its vertical and horizontal lines when magnified are revealed to be micro-printed text that contain the details, names, dates and locations of individual Iraqi civilians who perished during the U.S.-led Iraq invasion in 2003.

“It’s estimated that between 150,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians died,” he said during the talk. “I wanted to do more than just bring awareness to this terrifying number. I wanted to create a monument for the individual civilians who died as a result of the invasion.”

To learn more about the Notepad project, visit SWAMP » Notepad, where you can also request a sheet of Notepad paper for use in a letter to your own government representatives.

More information:

• Matt Kenyon’s TED Talk