Through original works and a selection of archival materials artist Aaron Hughes celebrates the legacy of anti-war veteran activism and GI resistance. The featured works highlight veterans’ radical turn from militarism towards solidarity, proposing new alignments rooted in the shared experience of oppression, and the collective struggle for freedom and democracy.

Aaron Hughes, Dust Memories, 2006 (Ink, charcoal, water color, Citra Solv transfers, and collage on Strathmore acid free bristol) 

The exhibition opens with Dust Memories, a series of drawings, paintings, and collages in which Hughes reflects on ambiguous and anxious moments of his deployment with the 1244th Transportation Company to Kuwait and Iraq in support of combat operations in 2003 and 2004. 

Highlighting a shift from personal reflection to anti-war activism, the exhibition continues with an installation featuring posters from Vietnam Veterans Against the War, Iraq Veterans Against the War, and About Face: Veterans Against the War. Working with these groups and the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, Hughes created a number of the featured prints or co-curated the others into the War is Trauma and Celebrate People’s History: IVAW portfolios he organized. 

Building on this work is Hughes’s newest piece, Fort Hood 43, a large-scale collage drawing celebrating the Black soldiers at Fort Hood who refused to deploy to Chicago for riot-control duty during the Democratic National Convention in 1968. In this current moment of troop deployments to major cities it is worth remembering these soldiers that risked everything to follow their conscience. 

Aaron Hughes, Fort Hood 43, 2025 (Deconstructed and restitched together military uniforms, reproduced GI newspapers on Kozo, India ink on Kozo, gesso, and acrylic)

A Radical Turn, UIS installation, 2025

Lifting up this turn from blind obedience to acts of solidarity by military members and veterans, Hughes shares a pair of new ink drawings about Vietnam Veterans Against the War and its founding. ​​In April 1967 Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his historic “Beyond Vietnam” speech highlighting the need to confront racism, materialism, and militarism, and the importance of self-determination. The speech had a profound impact on many service members and veterans. In fact, just weeks after he gave that speech, Dr. King joined a massive anti-war mobilization in New York where for the first time ever a group of Vietnam veterans marched under a banner declaring “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, a reminder that those trained for war could become some of its fiercest opponents. From Vietnam Veterans Against the War to today veterans continue to be inspired by Dr. King’s call for a “radical revolution of values.” 

The show concludes with archival materials from Vietnam Veterans Against the War. These newspapers are a reminder of the radical possibilities of GI and veteran organizing. As Thich Nhat Hanh noted, “If veterans can achieve awareness, transformation, understanding, and peace, they can share with the rest of society the realities of war. And they can teach us how to make peace with ourselves and each other, so we never have to use violence to resolve conflicts again.”

Vietnam veteran Against the War ephemera left to right (Vietnam Veterans Against the War button, ~1971; What is Vietnam Veterans Against the War – Winter Soldier Organization, ~1971; “Veterans Day 1971” The 1st Casualty, December 1971; “Building The GI Movement,” Winter Soldier, November 1973)

Vietnam veteran Against the War ephemera left to right (“Unity Sruggle Victory,” Winter Soldier, June 1973; “Fighting Military Oppression,” Winter Soldier, November 1974; “Building the Anti-Imperialist GI Movement,” Winter Soldier, November 1974)

A Radical Turn, UIS installation, 2025