This semester I have been working as an intern at the Guantánamo Public Memory Project (GPMP). GPMP was first launched in 2009 by the International Coalition of Sites of Conscience but is now a part of the Humanities Action Lab (HAL) at The New School – more on that later. In 2012 GPMP worked with ten partner Universities, including NYU, to teach a simultaneous course on the “long history” of the US Naval Base at Guantánamo. Each class produced a panel, or in some cases two, that went towards an exhibition that opened in the windows of the Kimmel Center in December 2012 and has now travelled to fifteen Universities in the United States, has been abroad to London, Istanbul, and Brighton, and has been seen by over 500,000 people.
At this point it may seem slightly confusing as to why I am working on a project that was largely focused on creating an exhibition that was long ago finished. Isn’t the project over? Absolutely not. The idea behind GPMP was to create a national dialogue around Guantánamo. At the same time that the exhibition opened a website was launched and it forms a focal point through which to collect further artifacts and stories for the project. Collection is also organized by institutions that take on the exhibition; GPMP will next be displayed at the University of South Carolina and students there have already travelled to Guantánamo itself to interview base residents. This semester I was primarily working on how to archive the GPMP digital and physical collections but also how to make these collections accessible.
GPMP stores its physical collections at Columbia University and they consist mostly of artworks, for example those created by Haitian refugees detained at the base between 1991 and 1994. The majority of the collections are digital and can be found at the Digital Library of the Caribbean. These digital collections are diverse but predominantly consist of family photographs taken by military dependents on the base before they were evacuated during the Cuban Missile Crisis, and oral histories conducted with individuals who have had some sort of connection to Guantánamo. This then encompasses though who remember the base fondly, for example the military families or those who worked at the base, and those who have extremely negative memories, for example refugees detained at the base or those detained as part of the War on Terror.
Within the photographs and the interviews the subject, at least in terms of location, is the same, but they represent very different types of historical sources. The individuals interviewed were very much aware that their story would be going on the historical record; they were either contacted by or made contact with, GPMP, they were interviewed by a student involved with the project, and they gave consent for their interviews to be shared. On the other hand the family photographs were likely never intended to be viewed by anyone without a direct connection to the people being photographed. Throughout the semester the nature of these sources I was dealing with interested me and I wrote two blog posts about it that will be going up on the GPMP website soon.
I also handled all the incoming inquiries that GPMP received. These ranged from artworks that were being donated to the project, to consent forms that needed to be translated from Haitian Kreyol, to individuals that wished to be interviewed for the project. It was a great insight into how projects live on beyond their projected endpoint. With that in mind it’s worth mentioning the work that GPMP has spawned. The project has served as a model for the newly formed Humanities Action Lab and this year it’s first project was launched: a public history of mass incarceration in the United States. The project will follow a similar format to that of GPMP, classes will be taught – this time at over 20 Universities – and each will create a panel for an exhibition. If the Guantánamo example is anything to go by it will be well worth visiting.