The Veteran Book Project, is a workshop that teaches bookmaking to veterans as a way of processing their wartime experience:
The Veterans Book Project is a library of books authored collaboratively by artist Monica Haller and dozens of people who have been affected by, and have archives of, the current American wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. In their printed format, the books provide a place or “container” that slows down and materializes the great quantity of ephemeral image files that live on veterans’ hard drives and in their heads.
Each book re-deploys volatile images with the aim of rearticulating and refashioning memories. It stands both independent of and in concert with the larger collection.
The workshops are held multiple times a year around the country. Check their website for dates
Mary-Ann Rich, an Army Lieutenant Colonel who is working with the Veterans Book Project, writes about her difficulty coming home from Iraq in the ContraCosta Times. And here’s an enlightening interview with Jesse Albrecht, a ceramics professor who fought in Iraq who also participated in the Bookmaking Project. In this interview he discusses his own experience and art, and how art making can help veterans.
Productions