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. 

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.

Exhibitions will be at the Chicago Cultural Center, Elmhurst Art Museum, Hyde Park Art Center, and Walls Turned Sideways. The Triennial will culminate with the Veteran Art Summit with programs at each hosting institution from November 5th through the 8th, 2026 in the days leading up to Veterans Day. 

Curated by Aaron Hughes, Mohamed Mehdi, and Amber Zora.