Guantanamo: Pictures from Home. Questions of Justice.

The exhibit, Guantanamo: Pictures from Home. Questions of Justice. portrays 32 detainees and their experiences in Guantanamo through 88 previously unseen photographs and short video work gathered by the project creator and artist Margot Herster. The stories and images portray detainees from Yemen, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Bahrain. Photographs are accompanied by narratives from the detainees’ attorney’s, and an audio installation titled Inside Guantanamo details events that take place inside the prison.

The photographs were not originally intended for public view, but rather were used as a means of generating communication between detainees and attorneys. Attorneys visited detainees’ homes abroad and brought back to the prison pictures of family members, personal belongings, friends and neighbors. These photographs became essential to building a strong relationship between the attorney’s and detainees.

Currently there are 387 detainees in Guantanamo, and many of them have spent several years in the prison in confinement without being formally charged. Lawyers began visiting the detainees and their families after the 2004 Supreme Court decision that allowed prisoners to file cases challenging their detention in U.S. courts.

The exhibit, Guantanamo: Pictures from Home. Questions of Justice. will be on view at the Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery at the University of California, Santa Cruz from September 27th to December 1st, 2007.