Guantanamo: If the light goes out These images show details from the homes where men released without charge from detention in Guantanamo Bay are now trying to rebuild their lives. The work seeks to illustrate the contrast between the shared humanity of the mens’ new domestic interiors and the spaces of the prison camps where they were held; to reflect the memories of home and family they had during their detention; and to evoke the legacy of disturbance and fear the memories of incarceration and interrogation now have in their minds.
Guantanamo: If the light goes out
‘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.ʼ
Detainee #1458
These images show details from the homes where men released without charge from detention in Guantanamo Bay are now trying to rebuild their lives.
Many were held in legal limbo for years and repeatedly interrogated with methods some have called torture.
The work seeks to illustrate the contrast between the shared humanity of the mens’ new domestic interiors and the spaces of the prison camps where they were held; to reflect the memories of home and family they had during their detention; and to evoke the legacy of disturbance and fear the memories of incarceration and interrogation now have in their minds.
To glimpse the evening sun through a window is a simple thing but readjusting to having the freedom to do so may not be. Like a net curtain, memories can obscure the view. To be physically free but trapped in your thoughts is to be like a rose left to atrophy in a vase.
Still-life imagery of personal space and possessions follows a tradition of symbolism and metaphor. This series draws on the ‘Vanitas’ style of 17th century Dutch painting in which artists used everyday objects like hourglasses, candles and flowers to symbolise time, the transience of temporal existence and the futility of man’s endeavours.