Exhibitions, healing and sharing the stories of Australian veterans

The mental health of Australian veterans is the source of increasing concern, and the announcement of the forthcoming Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide (2021) foregrounds the services available to Australian Defence Force personnel to help them transition to civilian life. The acknowledgement of war time experiences can have a positive impact on veterans' wellbeing but this raises the issue of how and where this takes place. At the same time, ideas about the ability of heritage to heal have come to the fore, related to its role in acknowledging past experiences and coming to terms with traumatic individual and collective pasts. How might these new approaches to heritage be applied to support Australian veterans' transition to civilian life? This chapter explores the motivations, attitudes, and involvement of veterans in exhibition-making in Australia. It examines the role of older veterans in collecting and exhibiting both their own stories and those of younger “Fourth Wave” veterans as a way of acknowledging service and its aftermath. It argues this process is both one of catharsis and an ethics of care. In doing so, it reflects on the ability of exhibitions more broadly to function as spaces of healing and reconciliation.