{"id":21371,"date":"2022-06-20T15:13:53","date_gmt":"2022-06-20T13:13:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.landskronafoto.org\/?page_id=21371"},"modified":"2026-06-05T12:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T10:26:09","slug":"debi-cornwall","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.landskronafoto.org\/en\/debi-cornwall\/","title":{"rendered":"Debi Cornwall- Model Citizens"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"
Debi Cornwall, Judgment Scenario 1. U.S. Border Patrol Academy. <\/em>Artesia, New Mexico, 2022, from the series Model Citizens<\/em> \u00a9 Debi Cornwall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

LOCATION: <\/strong>Landskrona Foto, Tyghuset. <\/strong>MAP<\/strong>.<\/a> Buy festival tickets<\/strong><\/a><\/h4>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the last decade, Debi Cornwall has been investigating the fictions fueling America\u2019s idea of itself. Her vivid, formally composed color documentary photographs serve more to provoke than to inform, inviting a closer examination of how state power is performed, consumed, and normalized.<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

This exhibition features two bodies of work representing two sides of the same coin. What are the stories power tells, the games it plays, to manage unsettling realities? Necessary<\/em> Fictions <\/em>frames this question through the lens of immersive, realistic wargames. On ten military bases across the United States, Debi Cornwall documents mock\u2011village landscapes in the fictional country of \u201cAtropia\u201d and its population, roleplayers who enact versions of their past or future selves in realistic training scenarios. Costumed Afghan and Iraqi civilians, many who fled war, now recreate it in the service of the U.S. military. Real soldiers preparing to deploy practice their possible futures as fighters or casualties of war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do staging, performance and roleplay inform ideas about citizenship in a violent land whose people no longer agree on what is true? Model Citizens <\/em>considers the United States as a case study in this global phenomenon, with images made in three kinds of sites: immersive, realistic training scenarios at the U.S. Border Patrol Academy, Donald Trump\u2019s right-wing \u201cSave America\u201d rallies, and historical museums staging Americans as heroic victors or innocent victims. Jarringly juxtaposed images from these apparently unrelated sites illuminate systems that reconcile, justify, or distract from the violence pervading a militarized culture.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"
\u00a9 Debi Cornwall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n


Debi Cornwall is an American conceptual documentary artist who has focused on her career as an artist since 2014 after practicing for twelve years as a civil rights attorney. Employing absurdity and dark humor, she excavates invisible systems by layering still and moving images with testimony and archival material. Her books\u00a0Welcome to Camp America : Inside Guant\u00e1namo Bay<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Necessary Fictions<\/em>\u00a0(Radius Book, 2017 and 2020) have received numerous awards. She has received, among other honors, the NYSCA\/NYFA Fellowship in Photography, the Leica Women Foto Project Award, and the Harpo Foundation Visual Artist Grant, and has also been nominated for the W. Eugene Smith Fund Grant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Debi Cornwall, Insurgent. Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center. <\/em>Twentynine Palms, California, 2018, from the series Necessary Fictions<\/em> \u00a9 Debi Cornwall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Model Citizens<\/em> is an exhibition coproduced by Photo Elys\u00e9e, Lausanne and the Rencontres d\u2019Arles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Model Citizens<\/em> was awarded the 2023 Prix Elys\u00e9e. This prize is the result of an exclusive partnership between Photo Elys\u00e9e and Parmigiani Fleurier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Photo Elys\u00e9e, Cantonal Museum for Photography, is a Museum of the Canton de Vaud managed by the Plateforme 10 Foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prints realized by Picto, Paris and framing by Circad, Paris.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publications: Model Citizens<\/em>, Radius Books, 2024 and Citoyens mod\u00e8les<\/em>, \u00c9ditions Textuel, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LOCATION: Landskrona Foto, Tyghuset. MAP. Buy festival tickets Over the last decade, Debi Cornwall has been investigating the fictions fueling America\u2019s idea of itself. Her […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-21371","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","excerpt","full-without-featured","even","excerpt-0"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.landskronafoto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.landskronafoto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.landskronafoto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landskronafoto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.landskronafoto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21371"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.landskronafoto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30259,"href":"https:\/\/www.landskronafoto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/21371\/revisions\/30259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.landskronafoto.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}