Aaron Hughes was the 2014 Northwestern University Awardee of the Edes Foundation Prize.

He is an artist, activist, teacher, and Iraq War veteran whose work seeks out poetics, connections, and moments of beauty, in order to construct new languages and meanings out of personal and collective traumas. He uses these new languages and meanings to create projects that deconstruct systems of dehumanization and oppression. He works with a variety of art, activist, and veteran organizations and projects including: Iraq Veterans Against the War, National Veterans Art Museum, Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, Warrior Writers Project, Dirty Canteen,  and Center for Artistic Activism.

During the Edes Prize award year, Aaron focused on his ongoing Tea Project that utilizes the space created when someone sits, sips, and reflects over a cup of tea to offers counter-narratives that disrupt the numbing effects of war, detention, and dehumanization.