Question: what could make 40 lawyers from the Pentagon get on the Metro to take a field trip across Washington D.C.? Answer: Christopher Sims’ exhibit Guantánamo Bay at Civilian Art Projects. The show consists of 25 photographs of the naval base and joint detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where Sims spent five days in 2006. Among his strange discoveries: There’s a McDonalds. While photographs range from mundane to picturesque, taken in together they offer an eerie view into one of the most controversial, and invisible, places of our time.
After the jump we interview Sims, a teacher at Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, to find out what made him want to go to Guantánamo, how he hopes to change the war photography genre, and why none of his images featured people.
