by Luca Fiore
For twelve years, she worked as a civil rights lawyer. She sought compensation for the innocent exonerated through DNA testing, worked on behalf of families of shooting victims, cross-examined detectives, and pursued justice where the system had failed. A successful but draining career. So she gave it all up. Debi Cornwall, born in 1973, is now an internationally recognized photographer known for images that—through a disorienting grace—explore the thin line between reality and fiction in post-9/11 America. Last month, she presented Necessary Fictions and Model Citizens at Fotofestiwal Łódź in Poland, following the success of last year’s presentation at the Rencontres d’Arles.
Speaking of her life as a lawyer, she says: “I was always angry. I fed on indignation. My private life no longer existed,” she tells Domani. After an exhausting trial, she took a three-month leave of absence. She went to Mexico, then to Myanmar, where she discovered meditation—and started sleeping again at night. Back in New York, she left the firm where she had been a partner. She took a year off, living all the things she had denied herself as a Harvard student. And she returned to an old passion: photography.
“One evening I was having dinner with a friend and former colleague who had assisted Guantánamo detainees who were exonerated and released, but who by law could not enter the United States. I thought I’d like to photograph them.” That’s how Welcome to Camp America: Inside Guantánamo Bay was born, her first book, published in 2017. For it, she visited the prison on Cuban territory three times and met with 14 former detainees in nine countries. The result? A sequence of images of the prison’s interiors, taken under the strict rules imposed by the U.S. military (no portraits, no wide shots, nothing that could reveal procedures or layouts), as well as images of leisure spaces used by military personnel (pools, bowling alleys, supermarkets), and photographs of souvenirs sold at the base’s gift shop. These images are interspersed with testimonies from former detainees and former guards. An emotional rollercoaster. The stories of survivors and key witnesses of torture cases alternate with depictions of sterile environments staged specifically to be photographed. What emerges is a system of performance, a self-representation of the State that begins to fascinate Cornwall and becomes a recurring theme in her later work.
“I was interested in the disconnect between the official message and the hidden truth.” That’s how she discovered the military bases on U.S. soil where mock villages are built to simulate battle conditions in the Middle East. She later learned that these “games” employ “cultural role players,” American citizens of Arab descent who act the part of potential enemies. This became the subject of Necessary Fictions, her 2020 book, in which Cornwall presents urban landscapes that at first glance seem to be in Iraq or Afghanistan but, on closer inspection, appear too clean, orderly, and deserted to be real. “The idea is that when our soldiers arrive overseas, their bodies will already have an embodied experience of what awaits them. Their bodies will already know what could happen. Behind this are psychological studies suggesting that by staging war, one can prevent the trauma that so many veterans suffer from. But I ask: at what cost? What does it mean to train for trauma through another trauma?” The photographer doesn’t mince words: “Today in the United States, war is staged every day. Not only by the military but also by a network of private contractors. What does it mean that wars fought abroad actually begin—geographically, financially, culturally—on domestic soil, without citizens being aware of it?” Part of Necessary Fictions is also dedicated to portraits of National Guard members who are made up by Hollywood professionals to help train medical personnel in triaging fatal wounds. Cornwall asks: “What does it mean, for these young people, to play out the death they might actually face?”
Cornwall’s latest work, Model Citizens, published in 2024, stems from another question and reflects not on government attitudes but on those of civil society: “How is the idea of citizenship influenced by staged performances, role-playing, and simulations in a violent country where citizens no longer agree on what is true?” The project addresses three different scenarios. The first are the training environments at the U.S. Border Patrol Academy: here, “crisis actors” (civilians who play potential threats, many of whom are Mexican immigrants) recreate scenarios in which future border agents train to track, arrest, and use force against “illegal aliens.” Then there are the historical museum dioramas: installations portraying events from the Civil War to 9/11, which present American history through static scenes, often depicting soldiers as heroes and civilians as victims or stereotypes. Finally, there are the “Save America” rallies (usually Donald Trump rallies), where Cornwall documents the “performance of citizenship,” with participants often arriving in costume to “perform” with patriotic symbols. One image shows a Hispanic-American woman, with a border wall in the background, about to throw a large rock at a mannequin dressed as a border patrol agent. Cornwall explains: “The trend is to train only for the worst-case scenario, whether it’s a traffic stop or a border crossing. If you’re conditioned to fear the worst, you’re likely to act out of fear. With potentially disastrous consequences.”
So what kind of photography does Debi Cornwall make? It’s called “conceptual documentary.” She doesn’t reject the label, but she qualifies it. “Definitions are dangerous. I don’t think of myself as an ‘old school’ documentarian, someone who makes photographs just to inform. I’m interested in using images as one tool among many to invite people to look at and think critically about the world and systems of power—and how they operate on us and our role in society, possibly complicit in those systems.” But what do photographs themselves add to her intent? “People tend to ignore what doesn’t align with their worldview. Technology amplifies this polarization. But if something is right in front of you, you can’t unsee a photo. My goal is to create images that hit physically, that make the body react. When you feel something in your gut or your heart, you remember it. And that reaction can be the beginning of a conversation. If two people with opposing views both respond to the same image, that’s common ground. Maybe even the beginning of a connection.”
Luca Fiore | Writing on Contemporary Art and Photography 