Images by Edmund Clark
Says Lens Culture:
Photographer Edmund Clark has made a series of photographs that examine various aspects of the prison camps at Guantanamo Bay. He explores the facilities for the prisoners, and for the Americans who live there at the naval base. Then he visits and photographs at the homes of some of the detainees who have been freed, where the former detainees now find themselves trying to rebuild their lives.
The post-prison homes illustrate the contrast between the shared humanity of their domestic interiors and the spaces of the prison camps. Motifs of imprisonment and entrapment are present in both, resonating with the prisoners’ experiences — and coming to terms with them. Glimpsing the evening sun through a window is a simple thing but readjusting to having the freedom to do so may not be so simple. The narrative is confused and unsettled as the viewer is asked to jump from prison camp detail to domestic still life to naval base and back again. This disjointed edit is intended to evoke the disorientation of the process of incarceration and interrogation at Guantanamo and to explore the legacy of disturbance such an experience has in the minds and memories of these men.
***
“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 I am back in my cell.â€
—Binyam Mohamed, Prisoner #1458