INDIANAPOLIS– A local school teacher is incorporating a traveling exhibit about Guantánamo Bay into classroom assignments for her social studies students.
“Why Guantánamo?”, an exhibit running through May 12 at the Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis Cultural Arts Gallery, reveals the history of Guantánamo Bay from the U.S. occupation in 1898 to today’s debates about its future.
Eighth graders taught by Andrea Neal at St. Richards Episcopal School, 33 East 33rd Street, will tour “Why Guantanamo?” on Wednesday from 9:45 to 10:45 a.m. Students are spending time at the exhibit as preparation for classroom debates on current events.
Developed by more than 100 students from IUPUI and 11 other universities, the traveling exhibition “Why Guantánamo?” is a program of the Guantánamo Public Memory Project which seeks to build public awareness of the century-long history of the naval station. IUPUI students were responsible for researching, writing, and selecting the photographs for two display panels included in the exhibit. Students in the Introduction to Museum Studies class produced the panel “Arts of Detention,” and students in the Guantánamo Project class produced the panel “Guantánamo Hits Home.”