Incarceration is a damning condition. Disappearing into a silent web of turmoil and confinement in which there is accusation and physical and mental brutality with no recourse to escape or the ability to prove innocence is a terrifying circumstance for many in the world.

During the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, large numbers of people were detained and held at prisons in the two countries and around the globe: victims of the War on Terror that ostensibly targeted fanatics, but which often swept up the innocent.

The casualties of unjust arrest and detainment were many; a frightening status indelibly recorded by photographs showing the spectacular cruelty of jailers in Abu Ghraib and of prisoners in the cargo holds of US planes in Afghanistan. And there is the terrifying act of rendition.

For every scene of torture captured in a photograph, there are the numberless people who simply vanished without a trace.

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The subject of Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, may conjure up images of grainy Interpol mugshots and hooded detainees, but Mathias Braschler and Monika Fischer have created sensitive and revealing portraits of those imprisoned as part of the War on Terror. The body of work is deeply psychological and compelling, both shocking and absorbing, presenting individuals who were deliberately dehumanized.

The portraits show remarkable presence, the presence of men reclaiming the identity once lost and misunderstood, leaving only a piercing stare recalling the traumatic experience of incarceration.

Jamie Wellford & Lisa Larson-Walker

Monika Fischer

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Mathias Braschler

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