Guantanamo: If The Light Goes Out (@edmund_clark)

According to a tweet I just read by Edmund Clark,

Today is the 10th anniversary of the first detainees arriving at Guantanamo Bay. 171 remain there.

‘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.? Binyam Mohamed, Prisoner #1458

This is a study of home, of a very particular idea of home at a very particular time in our history. Rather than an attempt to monumentalize the historical fact of the Guantanamo camps, these images illustrate three ideas of home:

1. The naval base at Guantanamo which is home to the American community and of which the prison camps are just a par.
2. The complex of camps where the detainees have been held.
3. The homes, new and old, where the former detainees now find themselves trying to rebuild their lives.

The narrative of these images aims to evoke the process of disorientation and dislocation central to the techniques of incarceration at Guantanamo, and to explore the legacy of disturbance such experiences have in the minds and memories of these men. The viewer is asked to jump from prison camp detail to domestic still life, from life outside to the naval base and back again. From light to dark. interview by Monica Virgis