No longer in the media spotlight, it’s all too easy for many to forget that dozens of people are still imprisoned in Guantánamo Bay. The detention camp has incarcerated hundreds of detainees from around the world since it opened in the early 2000s in the wake of 9/11, the vast minority of which have been charged with crimes connected to those events. While over half of the men still held there today were cleared for release years ago, they have not been freed, and it’s possible they never will.
Over a decade ago, a group of these men began to create art. At first, they used what little material they could find, such as soap scratched on walls or plastic forks scraped on styrofoam cups, even drawing with powdered tea on toilet paper. If these covert artists were discovered, they were punished. But starting in 2010, after Obama-era reforms, detainees were finally allowed to attend art classes. What happened was a brief flowering of the arts in one of the least likely places, and under inhumane conditions.
In this episode, we speak with Erin L. Thompson, a Hyperallergic contributor and a professor of art crime at John Jay College who curated "Ode to the Sea," a groundbreaking exhibition of artwork by detainees that debuted in 2018. She recently returned from a week-long trip to the Caribbean military prison in order to view the 9/11 trials that ended up being delayed. Thompson spoke with Editor-in-Chief Hrag Vartanian about witnessing the strict policing of not only embattled art, but also how authorities maintain a tight control on photography taken by the media.
Writer and artist Molly Crabapple, on the other hand, found a workaround. She joined us to discuss her 2013 trip to the detention center, when she was granted access to draw this surreal prison and its inhabitants, both the incarcerated men and medics, guards, and other actors that keep the machine running. Her work shows us how the craft of drawing can illuminate truths that censored photographs cannot.
And finally, we spoke with writer Mansoor Adayfi, who was confined to Guantánamo Bay for almost 15 years. Like the vast majority of those imprisoned there, he was never charged with a crime. Adayfi gave us a first-hand account of hunger strikes, changes in torture tactics and confinement that came with each presidential administration, bonds formed between the men in the prison, and the flourishing of art through painting, singing, dancing, and writing among the detainees. He explains how such art became a lifeline for their survival. The author of “Letters from Guantánamo” and “Don’t Forget Us Here: Lost and Found at Guantanamo,” he works as an activist with CAGE toward the goal of permanently closing Guantánamo Bay.
In 2022, eight current and former detainees wrote a letter urging President Biden to end a Trump-era policy that barred their work from leaving Guantánamo. Multiple men, cleared for release just that year, said that they would rather their art be freed than themselves. Adayfi told us that if given that choice, he’d say the same thing.
“The art is not just art. It becomes a piece of you. You put your blood, your sweat, your memories, your time there. That art helped you to find yourself. To maintain your sanity, your humanity,” he explained.
“Art from Guantánamo, we consider it one of us, like a living being. It went through the same process: the mistreatment, the abuses, the torture, the death, even. Like us, like us prisoners. It’s the same process. It went through everything we have been through.”
Even if a detainee manages to be released from Guantánamo Bay, they still encounter significant challenges. You can donate here to the Guantánamo Survivors Fund, which seeks to provide medical care, housing, and education to those released: https://gsfund.org/
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00:00 Intro
05:16 Erin L. Thompson
43:33 Molly Crabapple
01:10:28 Mansoor Adayfi
#politics #cuba #art #arthistory #artwork #humanrights #guantánamo #guantanamo #censorship #censored
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