This week marks a very important step for our project, as our national dialogue crosses the pond, becoming a truly international dialogue. Our director, Liz Sevcenko, will be bringing a version of our traveling exhibit to London, where it will be on display at New York University in London.  She will also be hosting a panel discussion and planning workshop among potential UK partners as part of the Cultures of Memory Symposium.

This symposium is the joint project of Syracuse University (in the U.S. and U.K.), University College London (U.K.), York St. John University (U.K.), and Massey University (New Zealand), and will bring together a diverse spread of academics and artists over five days of formal addresses, informal discussions, and engaging performances.

On Friday afternoon, a panel discussion entitled ‘Remembering Guantánamo’ will introduce our work to a wider international audience. The purpose of the panel is not only to highlight the work of this project, but also to invite participation from new perspectives and voices in London and beyond. Additionally, the panel will consider some of the implications of bringing the exhibit to new contexts. What does it mean when a national dialogue goes international? What specifically does the U.K. offer to a memory project focused on Guantánamo? What voices can the U.K. contribute that could not be found in the U.S.? And why should the U.K. care to remember a site that is ostensibly a U.S. institution?

Alongside Sevcenko, the panel will include Haidy Geismar of University College London, Hilary Roberts of the Imperial War Museum, and the work of Edmund Clark, the photographer behind Guantánamo: If the Light Goes Out. On the same day, our exhibit will open to the public at NYU in London.

The exhibit will be open for a week-long preview, to introduce potential partners to the Project and identify ways they can participate. If you’re in London, don’t miss the exhibit this weekend, but also keep an eye out – we hope to be back again very soon.

To find out more, about the symposium, check out this program.

By Jim Bowen from Hope Mills NC, US (Tower Bridge, London) [CC-BY-SA-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons