This project comprises a selection of cards and letters that British prisoner Omar Deghayes received during his six years of incarceration in the American internment camp at Guantánamo Bay. They come from his family, but also from people all over the world who never met Omar. Since every piece of mail was scanned, officially stamped, processed and copied to detect possible dangerous content, Omar never received the originals, but rather abstracted picture material newly created in the bureaucratic process. Whether, when and in what form Omar received his mail was determined by his interrogation officer.
In the video “Section 2 Part 20: One Day on a Saturday”, the idyllic motifs of the postcards Omar received are accompanied by an audio track in which two voices are superimposed. A female voice reads from the Camp Delta Standard Operating Procedures Manual, a comprehensive handbook of instructions for camp guards that was made public by the whistle-blowing platform WikiLeaks. A male voice reads excerpts from the witness statement of a Guantánamo inmate. Omar Deghayes was released without charge in December 2007.
video, 7:37 minutes
Section 4 Part 20 was made in collaboration with Anna Stevens.
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