Northern Illinois University
Pick Museum of Anthropology
Department of Anthropology

How We Rebuild

September 2 — December 19, 2025

After conflicts have ended, what does it take to recover the heartbeat of humanity? "How We Rebuild," a penetrating and transformative photography exhibition, draws from twelve years of work created by grant winners and finalists from The Aftermath Project, a non-profit organization committed to telling the other half of war stories, after the conflicts have ended—what it takes for individuals to rebuild destroyed lives and homes, to restore civil societies, and to address the lingering wounds of war while struggling to create new avenues for peace.

The photos selected for "How We Rebuild" have been curated in a way to center and reflect on the human stories and memories that define us. The assembly of images feature moments of hope, agency, and resilience. The exhibition is organized in three sections: a prologue that features conflict and post-conflict photographs from Bosnia, and lays out the origin story of The Aftermath Project; a suite of images by four photographers who explore historical American aftermaths; and an international "wall of humanity" titled World of Aftermaths featuring post-conflict images from around the world from Northern Ireland to Sierra Leone and Ukraine.

Photographers featured in the exhibit are Rodrigo Abd, Juan Arredond, Fatemeh Behboudi, Nina Berman, Pep Bonet, Andrea Bruce, Monika Bulaj, Kathryn Cook, Jeremy Dennis, Gwenn Dubourthoumieu, Michelle Frankfurter, Alessandro Gandolfi, Glenna Gordon, Ron Haviv, Jessica Hines, Olga Ingurazova, Andrew Lichtenstein, Luca Locatelli, Davide Monteleone, Saiful Huq Omi, Javad Parsa, Adam Patterson, Joseph Sywenkyj, Sara Terry and Donald Weber.

This exhibition is a program of ExhibitsUSA, a national division of Mid-America Arts Alliance and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The opening reception for "How We Rebuild" will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 2, from 4–6 p.m.