Saturday 3/18 & Sunday 3/19 — STLW Veteran Art Triennial & Summit

Surviving the Long Wars

Surviving the Long Wars' Second Veteran Art Triennial & Summit

Chicago Cultural Center

Join us in Chicago for four days of exciting programming that emphasizes building relationships and fostering community care. STLW Summit Workshop &amp; NEH Discussions will have limited seating. Thursday 3/16/23 and Friday 3/17/23 will be held at the Hyde Park Arts Center (HPAC): 5020 S Cornell Ave Chicago, IL 60615. <a href="https://bit.ly/stlw-hpac" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Register here for Thursday and Friday at HPAC</a>. Saturday 3/18/23 and Sunday 3/19/23 will be held at the Chicago Cultural Center (CCC): 78 E Washington St, Chicago, IL 60602From the “American Indian Wars” to the “Global War on Terror,” the SURVIVING THE LONG WARS (STLW) summit explores the multiple, overlapping histories that shape our understanding of warfare, as well as alternative visions of peace, healing, and justice generated by diverse communities impacted by war. The summit features the STLW performance program and concluding discussion series of the yearlong NEH Dialogues on the Experience of War program. There will also be poetry readings, panels, artmaking and movement workshops, a portfolio review, exhibition tours, fifteen-minute Open Platform presentations, and more. The programming will emphasize building relationships and community care.There are limited seats for some programs, please reserve your spot with the button on the right. Under the general registration, please select the individual event(s) you would like to register for.Please review the <a href="https://www.survivingthelongwars.online/summit-covid-ada" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">COVID-19 Masking Guidance &amp; ADA Accessibility for the Veteran Art Summit</a>At this year’s Summit we invite you to help us build a safe community based on the principles of collective care and collaboration. The COVID-19 Pandemic has challenged our imaginations to dream up new ways to gather and celebrate collectively while reducing harm to our most vulnerable community members. The health and safety of our communities is our top priority. To be in solidarity with our elders, immunocompromised attendees, and our broader sick and disabled kin, we request that masks be worn (over the nose and mouth) throughout the 2023 Veteran Art Summit while in the buildings and common areas at all times unless individuals are socially distancing while eating, drinking, or presenting, or unless a disability or medical reason prevents their sustained use. We will provide masks on site for those who need them. We also ask that all participants take a COVID test before attending the Summit. If you are experiencing any symptoms of respiratory illness or have recently had a COVID exposure, please stay home.Thank you for keeping our community safe!—Surviving the Long Wars Organizing TeamADA Accessibility: All three venues of the Triennial meet the standards of ADA accessibility. For more access information from the Newberry Library, <a href="https://www.newberry.org/visit/accessibility" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">see here</a>; for the Hyde Park Art Center, <a href="https://www.hydeparkart.org/plan-your-visit/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">see here</a>; for the Chicago Cultural Center, <a href="https://www.chicago.gov/city/en/depts/dca/supp_info/ccc.html" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">see here</a>. If you wish to request additional accommodations for persons with disabilities, please email survivingthelongwars@gmail.com.

Saturday 3/18 - CCC

The welcoming performance at the Chicago Cultural Center will feature a discussion and grounding by Joseph Lefthand (Cheyenne-Arapaho, Taos, and Zuni tribes) followed by a performance from Winfield Woundedeye (Northern Cheyenne and White Earth Ojibwe Nations). This opening program will examine cultural identities and resistance through song, dance, and performance. It will be held in CCC's Grand Army of the Republic Hall.

*Welcoming with Joseph Lefthand & Opening Performance Winfield Woundedeye*

Joseph Lefthand (Cheyenne-Arapaho, Taos, and Zuni tribes) [US Marine Corps veteran] is an artist, administrator, and cultural advocate based in Chicago. Lefthand works at the intersection of art and social practice, exploring embodied movement, “performance-as-theory,” and communal inquiry. Lefthand’s experience as a healer, advocate, investigator, and scholar informs his continual dialogue with the cultural and historical implications of war, militarism, violence, and resistance. Meranda Roberts is an enrolled member of the Yerington Paiute Tribe in Nevada, as well as Chicana. In 2018, she earned her PhD from the University of California – Riverside in Native American History. She has worked as a co-curator at the Field Museum of Natural History, where she developed content for the renovation of the museum’s seventy-year-old Native American exhibition hall, now titled Native Truths: Our Stories. Our Voices. She is also the co-host for the award-winning podcast Exhibiting Kinship.

*Indigenous Artist Discussion Hosted by Joseph Lefthand and Meranda Roberts*

DRONE is a new play by Andrea Assaf and a transdisciplinary performance project integrating theater, live music, emerging technologies, and artistic containers for public dialogue. It explores the drone as a metaphor for how we become desensitized to daily violence (domestic and global), the question of moral injury, and the effects of remote-control warfare on the human soul. Featured performers include Andrea Assaf, Ashley Wilkerson, and Anu Yadav as The Survivors, and Nick Slie as the Pilot, with music performed by internationally acclaimed Syrian opera singer Lubana Al Quntar, Iranian vocalist and percussionist Aida Shahghasemi, and Palestinian multi-instrumentalist Zafer Tawil. Content Warning: This performance contains text based on the testimonies of military drone strike survivors and witnesses. Content includes descriptions of war, death, and violence, which may be difficult for some audiences. We encourage self-care, both in your choice to attend and during the performance.

*DRONE: Testimonies & Music*

From 2011–2015, Sada, an online and in person ad hoc art school, was set up in Baghdad to support artists working through the aftermath of US-led invasion and occupation. Nearly a decade later, former artists of Sada came together again, reflecting on their creative and disparate lives since that time. Artists Sajjad Abbas, Bassim Al-Shaker, Ali Eyal, Sarah Munaf, and Sada's founder Rijin Sahakian each created video works, comprising one experimental, interconnected anthology film. Sada [regroup] is a complex visualization of individual and collective art practices in a protracted era of international warfare. Commissioned by documenta fifteen. It will be held in CCC's Theater.

*Sada [regroup]: Film Showing & Discussion with Bassim Al-Shaker and Ali Eyal*

Forging Hope is the opening program for the Triennial exhibition Reckon and Reimagine. The program will begin with an exhibition walkthrough with featured artists and concludes with a music performance by Elexa Dawson (Citizen Potawatomi Nation), Joseph Running Crane (Blackfeet), Brittney Chantele, and James Pakootas (Confederate Tribes of Colville). There are 200 limited seats and it will be held in CCC's Exhibition Hall and Theater; reserve your spot with the button on the right.

*Forging Hope: Reckon and Reimagine Opening Program*

Discuss, share, and reflect on the complex connections and contradictions that arise when placing the “American Indian Wars” and the “Global War on Terror” in dialogue. This Surviving the Long Wars discussion will focus on how the humanities themes of intimacy, resilience, and solidarity across difference relate to the US long wars. Gerald Sheffield will lead a discussion about breaking bread and Michael Rakowitz's Enemy Kitchen. Gerald Sheffield [US Army veteran] is a Los Angeles-based artist and educator. He received a BFA in Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts and an MFA in Painting/Printmaking from Yale University. Sheffield most recently received a Fulbright Creative and Performing Arts Grant to perform research in Uzbekistan. There are 15 limited seats and it will be held in CCC's 4th floor conference room; reserve your spot with the button on the right.

STLW Humanities Discussion Hosted by NEH Veteran Fellow Gerald Sheffield

Join us for the first of two guided tours of SURVIVING THE LONG WARS: Reckon and Reimagine led by UIC students. There are 20 limited seats and it will be held in CCC's Exhibition Hall; reserve your spot with the button on the right.

First Exhibition Tour of Reckon and Reimagine

Monty Little (Diné) [Marine Corps veteran] is originally from Tuba City, Arizona, located on the Navajo reservation. He received his BFA from the Institute of American Indian Arts in 2015 and is an MFA Candidate at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Little has exhibited nationally and internationally. There are 15 limited seats and it will be held in CCC's 4th floor conference room; reserve your spot with the button on the right.

STLW Humanities Discussion Hosted by NEH Veteran Fellow Monty Little

Join us for the second guided tour of SURVIVING THE LONG WARS: Reckon and Reimagine led by UIC students. There are 20 limited seats and it will be held in CCC's Exhibition Hall; reserve your spot with the button on the right.

Second Exhibition Tour of Reckon and Reimagine

Sunday 3/19 - CCC

Anishinaabe Jingle Dress Dance is a century-old indigenous ceremony and living culture representation. The Jingle Dress Dance is sacred and respected amongst Great Lakes indigenous people. Its present-day practice is evidence of the power and resiliency of indigenous knowledge and traditional healing methods. Starla will discuss the origin story of the dress and dance, its historical relevance, rites of passage, and her connection and experience with the ceremony, culminating in a demonstration of the Dance. Starla Thompson (Potawatomi) is an Indigenous educator, scholar, curator, jingle dress dancer, and advocate. Her work is directly impacted by the long line of matriarch relatives who survived removal, assimilation, and relocation. They power her passion for truth and inspire her commitment to healing in our communities. It will be held in CCC's Grand Army of the Republic Hall.

*Closing Performance with Starla Thompson*

The emerging Veteran Art Movement, in collaboration with Veterans for Peace and About Face: Veterans Against the War, will host a vigil and silent walk to mark the 20th anniversary of the US-led invasion of Iraq. The war that ensued killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and more than 4,500 US service members, while the reverberating effects of the broader US “Global War on Terror'' continue to impact untold numbers of people around the globe. To acknowledge, reckon with, and heal from this violence and loss the community will convene in the Grand Army of the Republic War Memorial inside the Chicago Cultural Center to listen to testimonies, poems, and visions of peace shared by war-impacted people, including BIPOC veterans, Iraqis, South and Southwest Asian artists, and others. Following the vigil, participants will walk in a silent procession to the lakefront, where they will drop flowers—an historic symbol of remembrance—into the water. Held in CCC's Grand Army of the Republic Hall.

*Iraq War Anniversary Memorial Activation*

Joseph Lefthand (Cheyenne-Arapaho, Taos, and Zuni tribes) is an artist, administrator, cultural advocate, and Marine Corps veteran based in Chicago. Lefthand works at the intersection of art and social practice, exploring embodied movement, “performance-as-theory,” and communal inquiry. Lefthand’s experience as a healer, advocate, investigator, and scholar informs his continual dialogue with the cultural and historical implications of war, militarism, violence, and resistance. It will be held in CCC's Grand Army of the Republic Hall.

Welcome & Grounding with Joseph Lefthand

Anthony Torres is a writer, performer, and the Executive Director of Combat Hippies. Torres is currently a National Endowment for the Humanities Veteran Fellow, a 2022 National Association of Latino Arts and Culture (NALAC) Leadership Fellow, and a 2021 Kennedy Center Citizen Artist Fellow (CAF). Andrea Assaf is a performer, writer, director, and cultural organizer. She is the founder and artistic director of Art2Action Inc., a not-for-profit collective of women artists, artists of color, queer or trans-identified artists, and creative allies, who create, develop, and produce new and devised theater work, interdisciplinary performances, performative acts, and progressive cultural organizing. It will be held in CCC's Exhibition Hall

Closing Circle with Anthony Torres and Andrea Assaf

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Saturday 3/18 & Sunday 3/19 — STLW Veteran Art Triennial & Summit

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Saturday 3/18 & Sunday 3/19 — STLW Veteran Art Triennial & Summit

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