Surviving the Long Wars: Unlikely Entanglements

Presented with Chicago Cultural Center and Newberry Library, Unlikely Entanglements is one of the three featured exhibitions of the second Veteran Art Triennial, SURVIVING THE LONG WARS. Unlikely Entanglements reveals the connections that emerge between personal and collective histories of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) communities marked by the legacies of the two longest wars in US history—the "American Indian Wars" and the "Global War on Terror.” Visual parallels and connections surface—from contrasting viewpoints and across differences—between artworks by civilians impacted by these long wars and BIPOC military veterans. These “unlikely entanglements” highlight the aesthetic affinities that form between different histories, geographies, and peoples resisting colonialism. The featured artists - including Mahwish Chishty, Joe DeVera, Sabba Elahi, Rodney Ewing, Rajkamal Kahlon, Ruth Kaneko (Kānaka Wahine), Eric Perez, Yvette Pino, Gregory Rick, Dwayne Wilcox (Oglala Lakota), Yiran Zhang, Hussein Smko, Hipolito Arriaga, GOODW.Y.N., and more - use collage, embroidery, soft sculpture, and installation to unravel dominant histories of militarism while weaving together intimate stories of survival and resistance. Collectively, these consequential artworks of wartime survivors and their descendants conjure meaning out of the traumatic afterlives of the long wars while creating space for solidarity and alternative futures.