Steven Kasher Gallery

During Tuesday’s class, we had the opportunity to visit the Steven Kasher gallery. This gallery featured photographs by Jill Freedman and Debi Cornwall. The two exhibits were very contrasting because Freedman’s photographs were black and white and Cornwall’s photographs were very colorful.  Before reading the Vice article, Dramatic Photos of the 1968 Poor People’s Campaign in DC, I was unaware of this campaign.

I think the images that Freedman captured at Resurrection City in Washington D.C. were very captivating and really leaves a big impression on the viewer. The reason for this campaign was to protest the low wages, inequity and the lack of opportunity. King even asked, “What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t have enough money to buy a hamburger?”. In the gallery, there were very minimal captions which really left the viewer to their own to see what the photographs convey. I thought the photographs really captured what living in Resurrection City was really like. There were people living in tents made with blankets and cardboard, people kept warm with fires in trash bins, and some people were not even wearing shoes. I think a lot of the images represent unity in the community because they all stood up with each other to fight for a common cause and although there were difficulties such as police brutality these people still stood together. The photographs really captured the struggles of these people, one of the captions read, “some of these people raised their whole standard of living just by moving in. For the first time in their lives, they knew their kids would eat every day. Not only that, they thought they were eating good. Soggy cabbage leaves and baloney sandwiches.” This really puts poverty in perspective because these individuals really raised their standard of living by moving into Resurrection City, which was something that really astonished me.

The second exhibit was Debi Cornwall’s Welcome to Camp America. Before entering the exhibit, there is a little blurb on the wall which states that Guantanamo Bay is, “the best posting a soldier could have.” It has all these amenities such a bowling alleys and beaches, but behind that is a cruel world hidden beneath the so-called soldier’s paradise. Thousands of suspected terrorists have been held in Guantanamo Bay and tortured in hopes of revealing information. One torturous act that was recorded and in the exhibit, was waterboarding. Water boarding is where you stimulate drowning. There were many other recorded torturous actions such as removing prisoner’s clothes and letting them freeze. The images that Cornwall were very captivating, I remember very distinctly that there was a wall full of picture of Guantanamo Bay merchandise such as a tee shit, mug, water bottle and stuffed animal. There was even a baby pullover that represented Guantanamo Bay. It’s hard to imagine what parents would let their babies wear that. A lot of the suspected terrorists were held in prison for years and tortured on days end, but after a while no charges would ever be posted because their name would be cleared. It’s devastating to read how people like Hussein, photographed by Cornwall, spent 12 years and 6 months in prison was eventually released and no charges were filed. It’s heartbreaking to know they endured that much pain, torture to be laughed at and to only be released with no charges. I think this exhibit really put Guantanamo Bay into perspective.