Freelance photographer Christoph Lingg travels to the world’s most infamous prisons to document what has been left behind by the people who were once imprisoned for their political beliefs.
According to Lingg, his journey started at the Amna Suraka prison in Iraq - the site where thousands of Kurdish people were imprisoned, tortured and killed during the Saddam Hussein regime. Moved by what he saw there, Lingg launched a multimedia project to document political prisons and the people who survived them.
“The present multimedia project is dedicated to documenting memories: in photographs and texts. The camps serve as witnesses of the inhumanity that took place in them,” says Lingg.
So far, he has visited; S 21 in Cambodia, Robben Island in South Africa, Perm 36, Russia, Bautzen II, former GDR, Amna Suraka, Iraq, and Penal de Emboscada, Paraguay.
“In these camps, political prisoners were forced to carry out penal labor and were tortured, humiliated, and killed. Even though tens of thousands of people died in them, there has to date been little effort to reexamine and come to terms with what happened,” says Lingg.
With his work, Lingg hopes to give forgotten political prisoners a voice. “Even though most of these camps seem far away, they are relevant to all of us. They were spread all over the world. And remembering them is a contribution to a more humane future,” he adds.
The project has been self-funded so far, but Lingg hopes to further fund his work through a crowdfunding campaign.
