|
“Art from Guantánamo Bay” has generated widespread press coverage from around the world, resulting in the creation of a prohibition since 2017 against the removal of artwork from the prison. These pieces were removed before then.
Included in the Catamount Arts exhibit will be work by artist detainee Abdul Zahir, a client of St. Johnsbury attorneys Robert Gensburg and David Sleigh, who volunteered for over ten years with the Guantánamo Bay Bar Association. Sleigh and Leslie Gensburg, widow of Robert, will join artist and former detainee Mansoor Adayfi in a panel discussion at Catamount Arts on June 26, facilitated by Thompson. Adayfi will participate from Serbia via Zoom.
The exhibit is an expanded version of an earlier show, “Ode to the Sea: Art from Guantánamo,” the title of which refers to a common and poignant theme among many of the collection’s paintings. Although buildings in the prison camp have windows overlooking the Caribbean Sea, they are covered with tarps. Prisoners only saw the water once, in 2014, when the tarps were removed before a hurricane.
“Everyone who could draw drew the sea,” Adayfi wrote in an op-ed for the New York Times. “(T)he detainees put their dreams, feelings, hopes, and lives in (the drawings.) The sea means freedom no one can control or own, freedom for everyone.”
The exhibit’s paintings, drawings, and collages (one detainee used soap as glue) represent a variety of experiences, perspectives, and symbols, including iconic American landmarks, a mother’s tearful eye, and a visual representation of symptoms endured since a brain injury incurred during an interrogation. Some of the art is signed by the numbers used to identify detainees rather than their names, and some bear stamps reading, “Approved by US Forces,” signifying clearance for release to attorneys before all prisoner artwork was deemed property of the US government, destined to be confiscated and destroyed.
Exhibit curators hope this exhibition will shine light on the ongoing injustices being perpetrated against men who have never been convicted or even charged with a crime. “Viewers can make up their own minds about whether the art displayed in Catamount’s Fried Family Gallery is dangerous enough to be shredded or burned,” Thompson said, “or whether, like its creators, it ought to be set free.”
Special thanks are due to the Center for Constitutional Rights, Reprieve US, Beth Jacob, and exhibition manager Sam Monaco.
For information about viewing the exhibit at the Spotlight Gallery, contact Desmond Peeples at dpeeples@vermontartscouncil.org.
Information about the Spotlight Gallery exhibit can be viewed at https://www.vermontartscouncil.org/programs/spotlight-gallery/art-from-guantanamo-bay-selections.
For more information about viewing the exhibit at Catamount Arts, visit catamountarts.org.
About the Vermont Arts Council
The Vermont Arts Council envisions a Vermont where all people have access to the arts and creativity in their lives, education, and communities. Engagement with the arts transforms individuals, connects us more deeply to each other, energizes the economy, and sustains the vibrant cultural landscape that makes Vermont a great place to live. Since 1965, the Council has been the state's primary provider of funding, advocacy, and information for the arts in Vermont. Learn more at www.vermontartscouncil.org
###
| 
