Bandages-Bullets #1 is a photograph (57 x 80 cm) on archival paper, featuring damp crepe bandages and rolled khaki fabric pieces, all sourced from India. Stained with a translucent black solution, these materials are meticulously arranged on a wet plastic sheet. Up close, the peach-coloured dressings and khaki cloth, rolled to resemble bandages, bear a striking resemblance to bullets—blurring the line between care and violence on the Siachen Glacier. The upright, fence-like bandage formations evoke a symbolic boundary reminiscent of the LoC (Line of Control) between India and Pakistan, highlighting ongoing tensions between protection and confrontation across both physical and symbolic divides.

The composition also echoes the systematic display of seized contraband—carefully arranged, classified, and exposed—while evoking a forensic table of war’s remnants. The soiled dressings, resting on a transparent, icy synthetic layer, conjure the bleak whiteness of a glacial landscape, reinforcing themes of scrutiny and the lingering traces of conflict. The moisture-drenched surface, scattered black blotches, and unravelling threads heighten an unsettling tension, suggesting contamination, degradation, and the glacier’s unforgiving conditions. The dark liquid seeping into the fabric evokes blood, merging bodily rupture with environmental decay.

Bandages-Bullets #1 is part of Baptist Coelho’s ongoing multimedia series Bandages-Bullets, which investigates the relationship between bandages and bullets—both symbols of war. In 2015, during the artist’s solo exhibition thread by thread at LAMO in Leh, North India—located approximately 200 km from the Siachen Base Camp—a little girl, upon seeing gauze bandages in the artwork Rose #1, remarked that they looked like cartridges. Her words revealed how trauma and conflict shape perception, turning symbols of healing into markers of destruction. This moment deeply impacted the artist and became the catalyst for the series.

Bandages-Bullets #1 was first exhibited as part of the artist’s solo exhibition, It still hasn’t ended at Bâtiment IV, Esch-sur-Alzette, from 30 May to 14 June 2024. The exhibtion was supported by University of Luxembourg, Department of Social Sciences.