Redemption- A portrait of Ali Shallal al-Qaisi, Currency collage, 2019

By CK Wilde

This piece is based on the photo of Ali Shallal al-Qaisi being tortured at Camp Redemption at Abu Gharib Prison in Iraq. Ali Shallal al-Qaisi was one of the few torture victims to testify at the United Nations Human Rights Council about his treatment by coalition forces. To make this portrait using currency was my effort to connect many questions to this image: Why was this man tortured? Who is responsible for his suffering? Whom benefits from this mans suffering? Are we all complicit in the suffering depicted by engaging with this image? What is the value of an image? Whom does the image serve? Does this image replicate trauma or exorcise it? Who profits from war? What is the relationship between warfare and capitalism? What is the value of life? How is value decided and depicted? Are Human rights universal or contingent on circumstances? These questions and more are provoked in me, and hopefully in the viewer. I made this piece as an effort to uncover my own biases and complicity in the system that brought about the reality depicted by this image; to confront my participation in global economic violence and find compassion for its victims.