Arts Forum: “Torture and Representation”
A panel discussion with Daniel Heyman, Julie Mertus, and Katherine Gallagher.

October 25, 2-4 pm

Katzan Art Center, Washington, D.C.

Daniel Heyman, in a recent interview with FPIF Co-Director John Feffer: “I’ve heard now 35 interviews. I’ve heard about people arrested in the middle of the night, so the shock has worn off a bit. But listening to someone telling me these things, the room still fills up with the thread of words coming out of the person’s mouth. The words become a physical thing and weigh people in the room down. So, I wanted the words to feel like an imprisonment, like a cage surrounding a person. At other times I wanted the words to feel like a stream pouring out of a person.”

Artist Daniel Heyman, Professor Julie Mertus, and attorney Katherine Gallagher will explore the issues of artistic and legal representations of victims of torture in a panel discussion moderated by Sarah Anderson. This event is sponsored by Foreign Policy In Focus and Provisions Library and is connected to an exhibit called “Close Encounters: Facing the Future,” also at the Katzen Center, which runs through October 26.

Daniel Heyman is a painter and printmaker from Philadelphia who has been capturing the images and words of Iraqi victims of torture from U.S. facilities like Abu Ghraib. More of his work may be viewed at his website. Julie Mertus is an Associate Professor and Co-Director of the MA program in Ethics, Peace and Global Affairs at American University. Katherine Gallagher is a Staff Attorney at the Center for Constitutional Rights. Moderator Sarah Anderson is Global Economy Project Director at the Institute for Policy Studies.

This event is free and open to the public.

The Katzen Arts Center is located on Ward Circle at the intersection of Massachusetts and Nebraska Avenues in NW Washington, D.C. A map is available here. For museum hours and driving directions, please visit their website.

The “Close Encounters” exhibit is part of BrushFire, a national arts initiative organized by Provisions Library and focusing on social activist art in the run-up to the November elections.