The Veterans Book Project, an art collaboration by Monica Haller, opens at the University of Pittsburgh at Bradford this week.
The exhibition will be up Thursday through March 14 in the KOA Art Gallery inside Blaisdell Hall on campus.
An opening reception and gallery talk will take place at 7 p.m. Thursday. Gallery hours are 8:30 a.m. to 8 p.m. Monday through Thursday and 8:30 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday. The exhibit and reception are free and open to the public.
The Veterans Book Project consists of 50 books, each written by individuals with firsthand experience of the current American wars. Most of the bookmakers are veterans; some are family members of soldiers, and others are Iraqi or Afghan civilian refugees.
Haller’s aim in creating the Veterans Book Project has been to provide a framework for veterans and others to talk about their memories of war, and to offer exhibitions of the project as quiet spaces for contemplation and thoughtful discussion about war and its impact on our lives.
In 2005, motivated by a desire to understand the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Haller began asking veterans and others to share their experiences with her. She facilitated bookmaking workshops from 2009-2013 in which participants could organize their personal photographs and writing.
Each book stands alone, but each is also a part of the larger Veterans Book Project library meant to be shown in galleries.
Haller is a media artist who uses design, photo, sound and installation. She often attempts to use materials and experiences her collaborators bring from their own lives, reorganizing these materials or data to propose different ways of seeing.
