Making Art at Guantánamo

How and why was art made by detainees Drawing exercises (color studies, still lives of fruit, and shading studies of vessels) illustrate how artwork was made in an official art class, taught by military authorities. Other works serve as examples of the limitations and rules, like the lack of art supplies and the requirement to use soft, non-toxic materials.

The artists’ limited subject-matter and dependence on their own memories and imagination is introduced with drawings of the interior of a cell, of an artist’s own foot, and paired renderings by different artists of an Arabic coffee pot brought in by an instructor.