Mark Pinto, Small Arms, 2014, digital print, 24 x 24. | Image: Courtesy of the artist.
Fallujah is the first opera on the Iraq War. Artbound documentary Fallujah: Art, Healing, and PTSD explores how the experience of war was transformed into a work of art. Watch the episodes debut Tuesday, May 24 at 9 p.m., or check for rebroadcasts here.
How does it feel to go to war? What does it feel like to come back? With less than one percent of the U.S. population in the armed forces, how are artist-veterans making bridges for a public that's increasingly disconnected from the consequences of war? Is it ever truly possible to come home?
Every war delivers a raft of new technologies, injuries, and artworks.
The American Civil War produced multiple amputations courtesy of a spinning bullet that ground bones almost to powder, as well as some of the first major war photographs. In the First World War, heavy artillery shrapnel mangled soft flesh. Advances in medical science kept severely wounded troops alive, and veteran artist Otto Dix recorded the nascent plastic surgery and sensory prosthetics that tried to give them back a life.
The signature wounds of Iraq and Afghanistan troops are Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), clinical depression, and Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI). Although 22 veterans kill themselves each day, there is, as yet, no Defense Department recognition of moral injury, the bruise on the soul that Michael Castellana, psychotherapist at the U.S. Naval Medical Center in San Diego, has attributed to what happens when we send our children into a war zone and say, kill like a champion.'
For artist and Gulf War veteran Mark Pinto, the crux of his artwork is this moral injury, a phenomenon that shares symptoms with PTSD, but is not the same thing. You can get PTSD from a car crash, says Pinto in a recent conversation, but you haven't done anything that goes against societal norms. With a moral injury, you've done something, seen something, or know something that you shouldn't have to see, know, or do.
For Pinto, art therapy is not enough: I honor and respect art therapy work, he says, but at the same time I want to transcend it. Many of us, we feel an obligation to share what we have learned. If I can personalize this moral injury and make it visceral, if non-veterans understood their complicity in war, something might change?
Like Pinto, there is an emerging generation of American veterans who are acting on the idea that their work can help to heal not only its viewers and participants, but also wider societal wounds.
Celebrate Peoples History: Iraq Veterans Against the War street art action in Portland, 2015. | Photo: Courtesy of Aaron Hughes.
Utilizing multiple channels to broadcast and connect, these veteran artists tend to be individual makers of diverse objects -- including ceramics, installations, photographs, drawings, prints, and posters -- who also embrace the interaction, intervention, and activism that has come to be called social practice. When the subject of art and military veterans is discussed these days, it is usually in the context of therapeutic activities for people struggling to heal from the often-invisible wounds of war. Setting aside artists whose military service may be coincidental to their art-making -- like vets Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Sol Lewitt, Richard Diebenkorn, and even the popular TV painter Bob Ross -- art therapy focuses on benefit for the individual patient rather than on the quality of the artwork. The Art of War Project, which aims to use art to help veterans with PTSD, is a case in point. As its founder Curtis Bean says: There are [more] healthy and positive options than medicating or self-medicating. You've just got to find the right option for you.
In Pintos work Small Arms, a mandala-like print of word-filled rifles and grenades, the artist says he was referencing the morals you are raised with, not least the commandment thou shalt not kill. A former Buddhist priest, Pinto says the mandala is a map of the spiritual world and a focal point for meditation. As the public gets farther and farther away from the actual fight, he says, the military are isolated, and feel that they're becoming expendable.
Still from Jason Moons video Trying to Find My Way Home, 2010.
Iraq War veteran and singer-songwriter Jason Moon echoes Pintos sentiments with his song Trying to Find My Way Home:
How do they expect a man to do the things that I have, come back and be the same? The things I done that I regret, the things I seen I won't forget in this life and so many more.
And I'm trying to find my way home, the child inside me is long dead and gone, somewhere between lost and alone, trying to find my way home.
Telling a visual story in which a troubled veteran chooses writing over suicide, one of Moon's viewers has written: Tragedy rips out that innocence the void of losing it changes a persons mind, heart and soul. I feel like steel beaten, burned and forged into something I never should of been One thing to be said song like this gives me hope that am not alone...
Celebrate Peoples History: Iraq Veterans Against the War San Francisco Projection Department action in West Oakland, 2015. | Photo: Courtesy of Aaron Hughes.
Comparatively few in number, veteran artists often collaborate in a web of overlapping collectives.
The Dirty Canteen is a nine-artist collective that works to promote understanding of how war and trauma not only affect members of the military, but our society as a whole. Its members -- Pinto, Amber Hoy, Ehren Tool, Thomas Dang, Aaron Hughes, Jesse Albrecht, Daniel Donovan, Ash Kyrie, and Erica Slone -- have all exhibited or collaborated with San Francisco-based Combat Paper (CP), a project initiated by Drew Cameron, which h
Most recent headlines
11/12/2025
Dalet, a leading provider of cloud-native, end-to-end media workflow solutions, ...
06/12/2025
FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. A new survey from Pixitmedia by Datacore revealed a major shift in the Media & Entertainment industry in media archiving, with 85% of resp...
06/12/2025
HACKENSACK, N.J. LiveU has announced that the national public broadcaster Czech Television has completed one of the largest LiveU live production deployments fo...
06/12/2025
NEW YORK The National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences (NATAS) presented the Excellence in Production Technology Emmy Award to NASA+ and Dr. Tom Leight...
05/12/2025
2025 Sports Broadcasting Hall of Fame: Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nati...
05/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: Veritone's Sean King on the Power of Mining Video, Audio DataThe company's Data Refinery offers users total control and governance over da...
05/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: Inside the Nashville Predators' Unified, Flexible, Sca...
05/12/2025
Netflix Reaches Agreement To Acquire Warner Bros. Following Planned WBD SplitThe deal does not include WBDs sports assets like TNT Sports (US, UK, LatAm), Euros...
05/12/2025
FOX Sports Returns to Indianapolis for Primetime Broadcast of Big Ten Championsh...
05/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Digital Engagement & Monetization Workshop Tackles the ...
05/12/2025
Atlanta United Lights Up New Emory Healthcare Studio With First Live Broadcast f...
05/12/2025
As Messi Takes the Pitch, MLS, Apple, NEP Roll Out Largest MLS Cup Production Ev...
05/12/2025
ESPN Enters College Football's Most Intense Month With Elevated Workflows fo...
05/12/2025
It's about that time! Awards season is in full swing, and the Film Independe...
05/12/2025
Every year, Spotify Wrapped offers a personalized look back at the audio that defined your year. It's a snapshot of your listening habits, designed to tell ...
05/12/2025
In 2025, Spotify's EQUAL, GLOW, and RADAR programs celebrated women, LGBTQIA , and emerging artists who turned moments into milestones. From breaking record...
05/12/2025
In our latest blog, we explain how Wi-Fi 7 rollouts can drive consumer loyalty with value-add services such as consumer cybersecurity. We also explore how this ...
05/12/2025
LOS ANGELES Netflix announced it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Nielsens Gracenote has launched Gracenote Content Connect, a new ad platform that provides agencies, brands, supply-side platforms (SSPs) and demand-si...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK In an most important update to the workings of deal-based programmatic advertising, IAB Tech Lab has released version 1.0 of its Deals API for public c...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Pass the turkey. Pass the stuffing. Pass the cranberry sauce. All are common requests of Americans celebrating Thanksgiving Day with family and f...
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. Netflix announced today that it has entered into an agreement to acquire the assets of Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion....
05/12/2025
NEW YORK Iris, the new cloud-connected camera control platform, has officially launched with features that turn virtually any PTZ camera into a software-connect...
05/12/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has approved AT&T's $1.02 billion acquisition of spectrum from UScellular in a decision that was issued sho...
05/12/2025
The Best Coldplay Songs: 21 Tracks That Shoot for the Stars From Yellow to Viva La Vida, Fix You to Paradise, this playlist goes back to the start.
December ...
05/12/2025
Zafris Lecture Series Brings Nabil Ayers to Berklee The 32nd annual James G. Zafris Distinguished Lecture series was held on Thursday, November 13, with guest...
05/12/2025
Friday 5 December 2025
A new Game of Thrones Tale: Official trailer for Sky Exc...
05/12/2025
Back to All News
Don Lee, Lee Jin-uk, and Lalisa Manobal to Star in Netflix Act...
05/12/2025
Tis the season of giving once again and this year we've taken our Give Back Fridays' concept and turned it on its head.
In the autumn we were approach...
05/12/2025
Brayden Gogis doesn't remember a time when he wasn't completely fixated on games in all forms. In preschool, when they asked us to dress up as what we ...
05/12/2025
The Grinch steals the spotlight as the theme for The Late Late Toy Show 2025
Tune in tonight at 9:35pm on RT One and worldwide on RT Player
#LateLateToyShow...
05/12/2025
RT Announces New Presenters of Flagship News Programmes
New RT Six One News co-presenter Tommy Meskill
Sarah McInerney & Justin McCarthy join Morning Ir...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir Blackmagic Design HyperDeck Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & ...
04/12/2025
ToolsOnAir AJA Ki Pro Event Presets for just:in mac pro 2025 & just:in linux
More Details:Starting with version 5.5, both just:in mac pro and just:in linux sol...
04/12/2025
Wangu Kanuri from Kenya and Godwin Asediba from Ghana are two of this years finalists for Thomsons Young Journalist of the Year Award. The pair are runners-up i...
04/12/2025
SVG Sit-Down: ProximaVision's Claudio Lisman on Why Tethered Drones Could Be...
04/12/2025
SVG Campus Shot Callers: Imry Halevi, Senior Associate Director of Athletics, Co...
04/12/2025
Platinum White Paper: LiveU Lightweight Sports Production: A Step Change in Spor...
04/12/2025
London to Riyadh: DAZN brings the boxing glamour to new production levels for Be...
04/12/2025
Analysis: Paramount bets on the battering ram' with Champions League play By Callum McCarthy, Editor-at-Large
Tuesday, December 2, 2025 - 10:12
Print ...
04/12/2025
Space City Home Network Launches SCHN DTC App for Astros and RocketsThe Rockets and Astros were previously the lone NBA and MLB teams without a DTC appBy Jason...
04/12/2025
SVG Summit 2025 Preview: Content Workflows Workshop Spotlights Evolution of Spor...
04/12/2025
New Sponsor Spotlight: Geotech's Patrick Wambold On the Unreal Engine Revolu...
04/12/2025
Curt Gowdy Jr. - Master Storyteller, Nationally and RegionallyBy Jason Dachman, Editorial Director, U.S.
Thursday, December 4, 2025 - 1:52 pm
Print This Sto...
04/12/2025
(L-R) Rebecca Lichtenfeld, Mohammadreza Eyni, Sara Khaki, and Judith Helfand att...
04/12/2025
SBS launches Future Frames initiative to support emerging First Nations video ed...
04/12/2025
Coronal mass ejections caused by eruptions on the surface of the sun can have fa...
04/12/2025
Gracenote Content Connect enables media ecosystem to precisely align ad campaigns and programming based on rich content signals
NEW YORK - December 4, 2025 - N...
Mark Pinto, Small Arms, 2014, digital print, 24 x 24. | Image: Courtesy of the artist. 
