Remaking the Exceptional – Tea, Torture, and Reparations | Chicago to Guantánamo

Accompanying the exhibition curated by artists Ginsburg and Hughes, this book brings together artwork and writing by torture survivors, artists, and scholars.

Remaking the Exceptional: Tea, Torture, & Reparations | Chicago to Guantánamo, published on the occasion of the exhibition at DePaul Art Museum, brings together activists, artists, poets, and torture survivors to investigate and resist the ecosystems of violence that connect Chicago to the US military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. Edited by artists and co-curators Amber Ginsburg and Aaron Hughes with Aliya Hussain (Center for Constitutional Rights) and Audrey Petty (Illinois Humanities), Remaking the Exceptional features new pieces of investigative journalism on the connections between military and police torture by Kari Lydersen (Medill School of Journalism) and Maira Khwaja (Invisible Institute), Spencer Ackerman’s 2015 Guardian exposé “Bad Lieutenant,” reflections on struggles for justice and reparations by Aliya Hussain, Alice Kim, and Aislinn Pulley, essays on art and resistance by Mansoor Adayfi, Marc Falkoff, and Tempestt Hazel, as well as interviews with Chicago and Guantánamo torture survivors. The richly illustrated catalogue is interspersed with poetry and artwork pairings by former and current imprisoned artists creating a virtual dialogue across carceral systems. The aim of the publication is to uncover moments of beauty, poetry, and shared humanity within and despite the traumas of state violence.

Amber Ginsburg is an artist and a lecturer at the University of Chicago in the Department of Visual Arts. 

Aaron Hughes is an artist, curator, organizer, teacher, anti-war activist living in Chicago.