Experiencing Veterans & Artists Collaboration (EVAC)

Exhibition co-curated by Joseph Van Kerkhove and Lee Fearnside

Description

Mental health providers are losing the battle with helping veterans in part because veterans feel isolated and don’t want to ask for help. Veterans commit suicide at a rate of 20 per day (US Department of Veterans Affairs, 2016). Deployed veterans who served from 2001-2007 had 41% higher suicide rate than the general population (Kang et al., 2015). Studies show veterans who share their stories may help with PTSD recovery (Bunnell et al., 2017; Erbes, Stillman, Wieling, Bera & Leskela, 2014; Hassall, 2013).

Experiencing Veterans and Artists Collaborations (EVAC) brings together veterans and artists. Veterans from all branches of the military, with service during WWII through Iraq and Afghanistan, were interviewed about their experiences. These veterans and their stories were paired with artists who made an edition of prints based on their interpretation of what they heard. Excerpts from the interviews are displayed with the art. With EVAC, veterans have an opportunity to share their stories one time, and to have that story impact many people.

EVAC is about the art of interpretation. Veterans tell their life experiences as a series of stories and responses to prompted questions. Artists distill interviews, ranging from 30 minutes to four hours, down to a single image. Viewers see the image and excerpts from the interviews side by side. Through this process of interpretation, EVAC works to combat the isolation common to veterans, and to bridge the sometimes precarious gap between military and civilian life.

By providing a glimpse into a veteran’s personal experiences, EVAC creates an environment for viewers that invites understanding and engagement. Art offers a unique opportunity to foster empathy, as it uses the senses to suggest feelings, stretches the imagination and invites understanding (Peloquin, 1996). Empathy can create an emotional reasoning process to allow people to experience someone else’s reality (Degarrod, 2013). A frequently-cited 2011 analysis of 72 empathy studies of 14,000 U.S. college students since 1979 indicates there is a 48% decline in emotional empathy, or emotional concern, within our culture (as cited in Merritt, 2017). Empathy is critical to fostering a society that places value on human dignity for all (Merritt, 2017). The process of storytelling and interpretation central to EVAC makes it a project uniquely positioned to promote empathy from multiple groups – the artist and viewer for the veteran’s experience, and the veteran for the artist’s interpretation of their stories.

Artists

Coco Berkman, Suzanne Chouteau, Maggie Denk Leigh, James Ehlers, Phyllis Fannin, Neal Harrington, Marco Hernandez, Yuji Hiratsuka, Erin Holscher-Almazan, Mary Hood, Sophie Knee, Liz Maugans, Kathy McGhee, Meghan O’Connor, Andrew Polk, Jonpaul Smith, Emily Sullivan Smith, Lenore Thomas, Michael Weigman

Hours

8am-8pm Thursday-Friday

Location

Michener Gallery

Main Library 3rd Floor

Kent State University

Wearing face coverings and being up-to-date on Covid-19 vaccinations are strongly recommended at this location.