Clark, Edmund (2010) Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out. Dewi Lewis Publishing, Stockport. ISBN 978-1-904587-96-5
Type of Research: | Book | ||||||
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Creators: | Clark, Edmund | ||||||
Description: | “When you are suspended by a rope you can recover, but every time I see a rope I remember. If the light goes out unexpectedly in a room, I am back in my cell.” The American naval base at Guantanamo Bay on Cuba has been home to hundreds of men, all Muslim, all detained in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on suspicion of varying degrees of complicity or intent to carry out acts of terror against American interests. Labelled “the worst of the worst”, most of these men were guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Many fell prey to the US military policy of paying bounty money for anyone that the Pakistani secret service, border guards or village leaders on both sides of the blurred Afghan–Pakistan border considered a possible or potential “suspect”, thereby becoming currency in the newly defined “War on Terror”. Held in legal limbo for years and repeatedly interrogated, almost all have been released without charge, and only a very few have been tried in the special military commissions set up for the purpose. Guantanamo: If the Light Goes Out illustrates three experiences of home: at the Guantanamo naval base, home to the American community; in the camp complex where the detainees have been held; and in the homes where former detainees, never charged with any crime, find themselves trying to rebuild lives. These notions of home are brought together in an unsettling narrative, which evokes the process of disorientation central to the Guantanamo interrogation and incarceration techniques. It also explores the legacy of disturbance that such experiences have in the minds and memories of these men. The book also contains the series 'Letters to Omar (2010)' This series comprises a selection of cards and letters sent to UK resident Omar Deghayes during his six years of captivity at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. Some are from his family, but the majority are from people around the world who had never met Omar. These are the choices they made in terms of images and words to send to a man in a cell thousands of miles away. At Guantanamo, everything was scanned for dangerous substances, redacted and copied or scanned – including the backs of envelopes and blank sheets of paper – officially stamped and/or given a unique reference number. These are images created by this bureaucratic process. Omar never saw the original documents. When and in what form he received these copies was controlled by his interrogator. These degraded, abstracted gestures of support became complicit in the control process exercised over Omar and ultimately contributed to his paranoia and disorientation. He was released without charge in December 2007. These images are scans of the copies that Omar received. |
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Official Website: | https://www.dewilewis.com/products/guantanamo-if-the-light-goes-out | ||||||
Keywords/subjects not otherwise listed: | Incarceration, War on terror, Terror, Torture, Justice, International Human Rights, Human Rights, Guantanamo, Law, International Law, Contemporary Conflict, War Crimes, International Justice, Control, Interrogation | ||||||
Publisher/Broadcaster/Company: | Dewi Lewis Publishing | ||||||
Your affiliations with UAL: | Colleges > London College of Communication Research Centres/Networks > Photography & the Archive Research Centre (PARC) |
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Date: | 2010 | ||||||
Funders: | Roddick Foundation | ||||||
Related Websites: | https://soundcloud.com/foto8/edmund-clark-on-guantanamo-if, https://www.flowersgallery.com/exhibitions/view/edmund-clark-guantanamo-if-the-light-goes-out, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2010/nov/03/guantanamo-photographs-edmund-clark-gallery | ||||||
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Related Publications: | [7] Places [7] Precarious Fields: Fotofestival Mannheim,Ludwigshafen, Heidelberg Catalogue, Power by teNeues - Prix Pictet International Prize Photography, Under Surveillance by Revolver Publishing | ||||||
Date Deposited: | 21 Aug 2018 09:25 | ||||||
Last Modified: | 21 Aug 2018 09:25 | ||||||
Item ID: | 12990 | ||||||
URI: | https://ualresearchonline.arts.ac.uk/id/eprint/12990 |
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