EVENT DETAILS

"The Sea, the sea!" Art, Activism and Guantánamo Erin L. Thompson

Professor Thompson recently curated an exhibit in New York City of  Guantanamo Bay detainees' art, most of whom have never faced trial or even had charges filed against them, their release still uncertain. Their artworks have been among the only ways detainees could communicate with the outside world - until the Pentagon declared it would no longer allow detainee-made art to leave Guantánamo.

Professor Thompson will discuss the exhibit and its consequences, her work with former detainees, the unlikely way their paintings of the sea reopened the debate on the future of Guantánamo, as well as its legal aspects,  including analyzing the basis for the Pentagon’s disputed claim that detainee-produced artworks is government property, possible ways to preserve detainee art, and the government’s response to a filing seeking release of detainee art (citing a Japanese internment case as precedent for government freedom to conduct war by any means necessary.)