Visitors to the Santa Fe Plaza on Monday were greeted with the sight of a twisted, burned-out, rusted wreck of a car destroyed two years ago in a suicide bombing in Iraq.

Some assumed the exhibit was an antiwar demonstration, but the artist behind the project said he simply aims to provoke dialogue about the continuing conflict.

British artist Jeremy Deller, 43, is traveling across the United States with five others in a recreational vehicle pulling a trailer with the car — an art project called "It Is What It Is".

The 3 1/2-week trip from New York City to Los Angeles is being documented online at conversationsaboutiraq.org.

So far, the most surprising thing has been "the lack of antagonism toward us," Deller said. "I was expecting to get negative comments from the public, but today is the most resistance we've had from people. ...

"There's some people who just didn't want to see it, didn't want deal with these objects, maybe because they're on holiday and it's not the kind of things they want to think about."

Reactions on Monday afternoon ranged from three young women from Denmark who wanted to know more about the project to a man who returned the flier handed to him, calling the project, "A revival of Vietnam vets against the war."

"It sure draws your attention," said Terry Streetar of Grand Rapids, Minn., who was visiting Santa Fe with her husband, Jim. "It sure brings reality home to you."

Jill Cooper, wife of U.S. Sen. Tom Udall, D-N.M., dropped by to say that despite the work's professed neutrality, "nevertheless, we should end the war as soon as we can."

The car — its make and year unknown — was destroyed March 5, 2007, when a car bomb exploded near a book market on Baghdad's Al Mutanabbi Street, killing 38 people. It was acquired from an antiwar exhibit in the Netherlands.

The project is sponsored by Creative Time, a New York City-based nonprofit that produced Tribute in Light in 2002, commemorating the destruction of the World Trade Center towers the year before. SITE Santa Fe hosted the one-day visit to Santa Fe.

Among the half-dozen people traveling with Deller are Esam Pasha, an Iraqi translator, artist and journalist, and Jonathan Harvey, a U.S. Army sergeant who was stationed in Iraq last year as psychological-operations specialist.

Pasha said he left Iraq in 2005 after surviving four attempts to kill him and sought political asylum in the United States. He said the art project has given him a chance to learn about U.S. attitudes toward Iraq.

"Iraq hasn't posed a threat toward the U.S.," Pasha said. "It has no connection to al-Qaida, has no connection to 9/11 and no record has ever shown even a personal offense from an Iraqi toward a person of the United States anywhere in the world."

Harvey, an information-technology specialist who recently moved to Anchorage, Alaska, said he joined the cross-country art exhibit largely because he was ready for a road trip and liked the artist's aggressive neutrality.

"All art is political, but the political statement here is that we need to create space where people can talk about the situation in Iraq without having to be forced into a pro-war or antiwar stance," he said.

Deller said his own opinion of the Iraq war is similar to that of most people: "That it was a terrible mistake and it was badly planned and the reasons for going in weren't actually true. I mean, we all know this now. That's why it's not an antiwar piece — because it's too late to go on about George Bush because it's all over in that respect. The argument's finished."

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.