About

Moral Injuries of War is an immersive experience forging new ways to contemplate and heal from war through testimony, movement, and public conversation

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Weaving together the voices of veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, Moral Injuries of War is a visionary production that brings the untold stories of war to the American public. The experience integrates 3D spatial audio with ambient visual design to create an immersive landscape of sound and light, inviting the public to journey alongside veterans as they grapple with their memories.

Innovating at the intersection of testimony, civic engagement, and community, this profound experience will make you question everything you believe about war.

Over the past 20 years, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq caused hundreds of thousands of casualties and cost trillions of dollars. In these insurgency wars, the line between combatant and civilian was often blurred, leading to terrible atrocities.

Many veterans, war correspondents, and other witnesses of these wars are troubled by their experiences and may suffer from moral injury—the sense that one’s fundamental understanding of right and wrong has been violated. What plagues them is not a set of symptoms, but a crisis of conscience. They cannot recognize the kind of person that they have become, given the acts they have committed or witnessed in war. That shame often leads to a desire to self destruct, contributing to the high rates of suicide among U.S. veterans—more than 30 every day. They would rather have an honorable death than live a dishonorable life.

The moral injuries of those returning from war demand an important conversation that we must have today, together.

Moral Injuries of War debuted in 2019 at UNFINISHED, a 4-day festival at the National Museum of Art of Romania for global innovators, artists, visionaries, entrepreneurs and change-makers. In 2020, it was awarded the Gradiva® Award for Best Digital Media.

The installation has since been presented across the U.S. to audiences of veterans, refugees, immigrants, and U.S. citizens. In 2022, Moral Injuries of War was featured at the Schuylkill Center in Philadelphia on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, bringing together U.S. veterans and Iraqi refugees for acknowledgement and healing.