A new article from The Daily Beast explores the Guantánamo Public Memory Project as a novel way to engage the public in exploring the long, contested history of Guantánamo. In describing the Project, author Miranda Green writes:

“The Guantánamo Public Memory Project is a traveling exhibit that explores the location’s expansive history, from its establishment in 1898 as a naval base to its role as a detention camp today. Led by Columbia University’s Institute for the Study of Human Rights along with the work from students at 12 other universities nationwide, the multimedia exhibit’s aim is to make visitors confront the occasionally hidden past of the notorious detention center.”

GPMP Director Liz Sevcenko was interviewed for the piece, and explains one of the leading motivators for the Project:

“We wanted to help people understand how Guantánamo was closed before only to be reopened and then closed again and reopened again. To show Guantánamo as not only the product of one administration but an enduring part of American policy and politics,” Sevcenko said.

In addition to the traveling exhibit, the Project also disseminates digital resources to promote dialogue on the base and the issues it has come to represent. Feel free to explore this website to discover Stories from people who shaped and were shaped by Guantánamo, the Timeline of events that made the base what it is today, or a map of the Place itself. Then visit the Participate page to join the debate and add your take.

Click here to read the full Daily Beast article.