EDMUND CLARK - GUANTANAMO: IF THE LIGHT GOES OUT

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Book Launch and Private View: 6.30pm - 8pm, Thursday 14th October 2010

Flowers, 82 Kingsland Road, London E2 8DP

Exhibition Dates: Friday 15th October - Saturday 13th November 2010

 

"This is a study of a home, of a particular idea of home at a particular time in our history.  This is the study of the lives of people whose paths crossed whilst in a camp on 45 square miles of Cuba, cut off from the rest of the world by razor wire and water.

 The atmosphere of life in Guantanamo is conveyed by Edmund Clark’s award-winning photographs.  Rather than acting as reportage, these contemplative images look at three different ideas of home: the naval base at Guantanamo, which houses the American community; the complex of prison camps there; and the homes, new and old, where former detainees now attempt to rebuild their lives. Clark says the work “is not about monumentalising the historical fact of the camps, but evoking the experience of individuals caught up in events in a backwater of Cuba.”

 The narrative of these images aims to evoke the process of disorientation and dislocation central to the techniques of incarceration at Guantanamo.  The photographs force the viewer to jump from prison camp to domestic stillness, from freedom to confinement and from light to dark."