By | Published December 30, 2017 | Full size is 800 × 450 pixels

"Ode to the Sea: Art from Guantanamo Bay" opened on October 2 this year, in the President's Gallery, located on the topmost floor of Hareen Hall, John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. It is a nondescript building located in a well-to-do section of Manhattan's Upper West Side, with much of the facade and entryway currently hidden behind renovation screens. The gallery itself is not much more than a hallway that opens up into various administrative offices. This unusual gallery space, is, however, the site on which the flotsam of a particularly brutal aspect of US geopolitical manoeuvring during the so-called "war on terror" has been made available to the public. The exhibition features 36 paintings and sculptures made by detainees at the US prison at Guantanamo Bay, co-curated by art crime professor Erin Thompson, archivist Paige Laino and artist and poet Charles Shields. Following its opening in early October this year, "Ode to the Sea" began to receive overwhelmingly positive press.

“Untitled (Alan Kurdi)” [Courtesy of Muhammad Ansi/John Jay College]