A creative project by Aarushi Sharma
“O Sea, you taust us in our captivity.
You have colluded with our enemies and you cruelly guard us”
Suffering reclaims a dominating exordium in the anatomy of prisons, this is starkly evident within the Sado-machinist techniques used to torture prisoners. For example, photographs from Abu Ghraib recount tales of torture and humiliation of prisoners. The huddled and fettered bodies depict a precarious reality of unending suffering. By looking at the photographs and poetry from prisoners all over the world, the creative project attempts to portray a virtual exhibition that captures the intersectionality (of identities) within prisons and understand how that produces unending torture towards certain bodies. The guiding question for the project is, “How do identities interact with prisons in ways that produce inequalities in punishment i.e why are some prisoners made to suffer more than others?”. The creative project attempts to answer the larger question of “What do prisons achieve?”, by looking at how prisons are spaces that produce unending suffering, especially towards certain identities. I use the case study of Muslim identity and how their identity as “terrorists” or “threatening” results in unending torture upon their bodies in prison complexes. Within prison complexes, Muslim prisoners experience an anatomical shift and become Homo Sacres i.e “who may be killed, and yet not sacrificed” (Agamben, 8). The term was coined by Giorgio Agamben which implies that these bodies are not executed by law. However, torturing these bodies does not amount to any legal repercussions, therefore, constructing a state of exception surrounding these bodies. This exceptionalism frames the bodies as obscure spaces that are made to suffer. The distinctiveness of these bodies prohibits their killing, however, they can be made to suffer without any consequences. Prisons exhibit such ideas of Homo Sacres where certain bodies are confined within frames of suffering. They become exceptional through the obscurity surrounding their bodies, where they are no restriction on their suffering. Suffering encompasses a prolonged desire for inflicting pain upon others. Prisoners experience an anatomical shift as bodies are perceived as objects ready to receive pain and humiliation.
This is most evident in prison torture which signifies unending suffering inflicted upon prisoners. Photographs from Guantanamo Bay, Israeli prisons, Abu Ghraib, etc depict how identity is central to torture. The torture inflicted upon the prisoners is embedded in the authority’s desire to control and subjugate “different” bodies. Different here refers to visible differences in the materiality of bodies, particularly their race and religion. The difference legitimizes torture inflicted upon certain identities, making them Homo Sacres. Jasbir Puar in her article “On Torture: Abu Ghraib” mentions how “torture is embedded in sociality: it is integral to the missionary/savior discourse of liberation and civilizational uplift, and it constitutes apposite punishment for terrorists and the bodies that resemble them” (Puar, 15). The bodies of prisoners exist in intersectionality with race, gender, religion, etc. These intersectionalities construct inventive forms of torture directed towards humiliating prisoners. In the case of Abu Ghraib, prisoners were feminized and sodomized. Both these acts of torture challenged the masculinity of Muslim men and inflicted suffering. The infliction of pain and humiliation upon Muslim prisoners creates a realm of exceptionalism. Muslim men are perceived as exceptional bodies that require suffering as they are “threatening”. Post 9/11 was an epoch of precariousness surrounding the Muslim identity. “Since 9/11, Muslim religious identities have been subjected to external social construction and used to organize social inequalities normally associated with racial minorities” (Nagra, 427). The social construction of Muslim bodies as terrorists or monsters has produced these bodies as threatening, which produces their differential treatment. This distinctiveness is visible in the context of prisons as well. Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib recount tales of how identities interact within prison complexes. The identity of prisoners in Abu Ghraib became a defining point for torture inflicted upon them in prisons.“The taboo of homosexuality within Islamic cultures figures heavily in the equation for why the torture has been so effective” (Puar, 17). Instances from prison show our torture methods are inventive in their approach to targeting and humiliating Muslim prisoners. Amidst this unending suffering, Muslim prisoners experience an anatomical shift and become Homo Sacres, as their bodies become targets of torture.
Through the virtual exhibition, I attempt to showcase how the global trends construct Muslim identity as threatening and its implications on prison torture. I portray how intersectionalities induce endless suffering within Muslim prisoners. The exhibition displays transnational suffering by collecting photographs of prisoners globally. All these pictures display two commonalities: the subjects being Muslims and how the identity becomes central to the torture. Along with the photographs the exhibition also showcases poetry written by prisoners. Both photographs and poetry are forms of artwork that convey the voices of these prisoners in an unmediated semblance. For example, photographs from Abu Ghraib framed prisoners’ suffering in untampered ways. These photographs acted as a means of conveying the realities of prison torture and how a particular identity was targeted within prisons. Poetry is also an unmediated pathway that depicts the narratives of prisoners. Prison poetry dispenses a voice to prisoners and allows self-expression without any constraints. Therefore, I use photographs and poetry from Muslim prisoners to depict their suffering as they are both first-hand narratives. Both these mediums create spaces where prisoners can convey tales of suffering and torture in ways that are accessible to everyone. Sometimes the most important thing to do is provide a platform to the unheard and overlooked voices. The virtual exhibition depicts a journey of these unheard voices using photographs and their poetry and provides a platform for their sufferings. As mentioned above, post 9/11 Muslim identity is constructed as monstrous to an extent where their suffering is overlooked and in some cases justified. The virtual exhibition attempts to highlight the overlooked suffering and display how identities interact within prisons to construct certain bodies as Homo Sacres.
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