Ashley Gilbertson's photographs have appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and other publications. His work is included in collections of major museums throughout the United States, Europe, and Australia. Among numerous honors, Gilbertson won the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal for his photographs of the battle of Fallujah and in 2012 was awarded a National Magazine Award for the New York Times Magazine feature of The Bedrooms of the Fallen project.
The need to see America's twenty-first-century war dead, and to make them seen-to give their absence presence-has consumed Ashley Gilbertson for much of the past decade.... To picture death, Gilbertson decided to picture how and where the dead had lived. He set about photographing their bedrooms, many of which had been preserved by their families in much the same spirit that Gilbertson preserved them with his camera: as memorials.... But taken together, these photographs defy any effort to seek in a room's furnishings an echo of its former occupant's fate. Their power lies in reminding us of the disconnect between life and death. (Philip Gourevitch, from the foreword)