Guantánamo’s Surreal Prison Landscape
Debi Cornwall’s images of Cuba are marked by the island’s bright light and strong colors. But that is about all that is familiar in her sparse landscapes and seemingly untouched interiors. A lonely, baked-earth golf course, where the hole is surrounded by worn patches of plastic turf. An empty kiddie pool. A television room with an easy chair — and a leg iron.
Ms. Cornwall’s Cuba is not found among the faded grace of Old Havana or the pastel tourist resorts of Varadero. It is at Guantánamo Bay, where she has made several trips to document the United States military prison where 149 detainees are being held, many without formal charges or a homeland to which they can return.
“I wanted to look at this all-American place and ask if this is who we want to be,” Ms. Cornwall said. “Is America at its best in this place?”
It took her months to arrange her first trip earlier this year, when she visited the naval base for two days of photographing under tightly controlled conditions. She was as interested in the lives and habits of the military personnel as of the prisoners.
“Everything is in place, there is no walking outside the lines,” said Ms. Cornwall, who returned to #Guantánamo last month for a few days. “It struck me as a study in contradictions. On the one hand, you have this tropical paradise and architecture emphasizing how we’re in this tropical place in a surreal way. On the other hand, you have the routine, the utter boredom, drab cement and aluminum siding. Both are coexisting, which reflects the two very different kinds of lives there: those of the guards and those of the prisoners.”....
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