Resisting the Long War
2026 Veteran Art Triennial & Summit
Building on the international success of previous Triennials, the 2026 Veteran Art Triennial and Summit, Resisting the Long War, highlights artists’ creative defiance to war and militarism. The featured artworks uplift overlapping legacies of war resistance, presenting alternative visions of peace, healing, and justice generated by diverse communities impacted by war.
Triennial Exhibitions Fall 2026 - Winter 2027
A Revolution of Values at Elmhurst Art Museum
September 12, 2026 – January 3, 2027
Creative Rebellion at the Chicago Cultural Center
September 26, 2026 - March 14, 2027
Freedom Fighters at the Chicago Cultural Center
September 26, 2026 - September 26, 2027
Shifting Horizons at the Hyde Park Art Center
October 24, 2026 – April 18, 2027
War Abolition at Walls Turned Sideways
October 24, 2026 – January 3, 2027
Save the Dates
Veteran Art Summit
November 5 — 8, 2026
From November 5th through 8th, in the days leading up to Veterans Day, the Veteran Art Summit will bring together featured artists for free public programs that deepen our understanding of war resistance while emphasizing relationship building and community care. The Summit will include a series of keynote performances at each hosting institution—Chicago Cultural Center, Elmhurst Art Museum, Hyde Park Art Center, Walls Turned Sideways—along with poetry readings, panel discussions, gallery tours, artmaking and movement workshops, and so much more.
In 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his searing “Beyond Vietnam” speech naming militarism, materialism, and racism as the “giant triplets” strangling American democracy. He called for nothing less than a “radical revolution of values.” Days later he led a march to the United Nations where, for the first time, a group of Vietnam veterans marched under a banner declaring themselves “Vietnam Veterans Against the War.” This public act of defiance marked the birth of one of the most powerful anti-war organizations in US history, demonstrating that those trained for war could become some of its fiercest opponents.
Celebrating this lineage of refusal, Resisting the Long War situates veteran art within an antiwar tradition and in alignment with the spectrum of artists actualizing Dr. King’s call for a radical revolution of values.
Curated by Aaron Hughes, Mohamed Mehdi, and Amber Zora.
