There is no way to "recontextualize the violence in Iraq, giving it an American face" without oozing pretension and getting it all over ones' pants.
Ah there we go - nothing she could have done would satisfy you, as she's engaging with an issue you choose not to, in a manner you are unwilling to give a chance.
Look at your interpretation of her thought process - pure ad hominem. Why, she can't be sincere about conflicting thoughts and feelings about civilian deaths, and how to give them shape, she had to be pursuing this egotistically!
Then you put words in her mouth - the Rousseau comparison is someone writing about her, not part of her artist's statement or other writings, so far as I can tell.
I guessed at the trustafarian bit, but a web search will show you she is a grad student at MIT with a non-tech undergrad degree and a "performance artist" with no visible means of support or means to pay MIT tuition.
Or, you know... stipends, off-campus jobs and loans.
By your logic, any grad student at any institution must be immediately treated as a trustafarian - as they have no "visible means" to pay tuition. Given that they're still in school and all.
Oh, there are lots of things she could have done that would satisfy me. None of them involve fatuous performance art.
Such wastage of finite time on earth is worthy of ridicule,
whatever the underlying bathos. ...conflicting thoughts and feelings about civilian deaths, and how to give them shape...
We can welcome her to adulthood, where ambivalence is rife and every choice made precludes others.
Adults deal with such and move on, they don't strap party poppers to their *expletive deleted*ss and mope about urban areas, hoping someone will notice their over/mis-educated selves.
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The "Cherry Blossom Party Popper Pretension Kit" is all about conspicuous, ineffective posing:
"Check me out, I am really sensitive & thoughtful* and actively put my sensitivity & thoughtfulness on display so others can marvel at it."
* "Thoughtful" translated as:
1. Learning about some outrage perpetrated by a foreign person or group
2. Holding back judgment on the perpetrating parties to avoid the "easy" answer and re-victimizing the victims of colonization
3. Referring to one of one's favorite Noam Chomsky or Howard Zinn works for guidance
4. Realizing that, yes, indeed, all the evil in the world has been perpetrated by European-derived folk and that
this new outrage is in reaction to
something done by America at some time in the near or distant past
5. Donning the smug attitude known to mis/over-educated twits the world over