© Debi Cornwall, Smoke Bomb (Necessary Fictions)

Debi Cornwall has had a remarkable journey from a twelve-year career as a civil-rights lawyer to an acclaimed visual artist. Her meticulous research and negotiation skills, honed through her legal background, now enrich her visual practice. I had the privilege of being her student at the International Center of Photography in 2023, where her innovative approach to conceptual documentary profoundly influenced my own path. Recently, we both exhibited work at the Rencontres photographiques d’Arles.

Debi had a large solo show, “Model Citizens,” at the Espace Monoprix, after winning the 2023 Prix Elysée. Over the last decade, she has been looking at how state power is performed, consumed, and normalized through three kinds of venues across the United States: Immersive, realistic military training scenarios and cultural role players as part of the US border patrol Academy (1), war museums, staging Americans as heroic victors or innocent victims (2), and “Save America” rallies dedicated to Donald Trump (3). Through her work, she asks: How do staging, performance and roleplay inform ideas about citizenship in a violent land whose people no longer agree on what is true?

At the same time, my project “Silent Radar” was being exhibited at LUMA, as part of the Dior Photography and Visual Arts Award for Young Talents. Silent Radar tells the story of two transgender friends (Silent and Radar, after their avatar names) who spend most of their time on the virtual reality platform VR Chat. This story goes beyond tech or the notion of ‘digital future’, speaking rather to the ideas of identity and community. It confronts and blends the real and the non-real, the virtual and the tangible, the digital and the analog, and begs the questions: When both realms start to merge, how is the ‘self’ defined? And what does it tell us about our real, tangible, world?

This shared experience in Arles was an important marker for me, as we went on to discuss the significance of working in lineage.

Debi Cornwall is a multimedia documentary artist who returned to visual expression after a twelve-year career as a civil-rights lawyer. Marrying dark humor with structural critique, she uses still and moving images, testimony, and archival material to examine the staging and performance of American power and identity.

While completing a degree in Modern Culture and Media at Brown University, Debi studied photography at RISD. After working for photographers Mary Ellen Mark and Sylvia Plachy, as an AP stringer, and as an investigator for the federal public defender’s office, she attended Harvard Law School and practiced as a wrongful conviction attorney for more than a decade, also training as a mediator. Exhaustive research and negotiation were critical to her advocacy and remain integral to her visual practice.

In 2023, Debi became the first American and first woman to be awarded the Prix Elysée, a biennial juried contemporary photography prize created by Photo Elysée in Lausanne, Switzerland, to complete and publish Model Citizens in English (Radius Books) and French editions (Citoyens Modèles, Éditions Textuel). Honors also include a NYSCA Individual Artist Grant in film, a NYSCA/NYFA Artist Fellowship in photography, a Leica Women Foto Project Award. Her work has been profiled in Art in America, European Photography Magazine, British Journal of Photography, Photography, the New York Times Magazine, and Hyperallergic, and is held in public and private collections around the world. A graduate of Brown University and Harvard Law School, she lives and works in Brooklyn, New York.

Follow Debi on Instagram: @debicornwall

© Debi Cornwall, Fawzia and Nabil H (Necessary Fictions)

Wednesday, July 6, 2024. Arles, France

Paola Chapdelaine:  (Speaking about the Dior Photography & Visual Art Young Talent Award in which “Silent Radar” – which won a 2023 Lenscratch Honorable Mention – was exhibited). The work was so diverse. It was a mix of very narrative based work, very “plastic” work, it was just a whole range.

Debi Cornwall: For me, there’s been a freedom in really embracing the fact that there is an arbitrariness to these awards. And when you start winning them, that begets other awards. When you start getting shortlisted because your name is sort of in the mix…

Paola Chapdelaine:  True! So you are currently exhibiting two bodies of work at Espace Monoprix for the Arles Festival. Can you explain what they are? And how does it feel?

Debi Cornwall: I’m showing Model Citizens. It’s my Prix Elysée project. We’re also incorporating in the exhibition my work from my 2020 book, Necessary Fictions, which you know very well. And the concept for the show is: what are the stories power tells? How do staging, performance, and role play inform thinking about citizenship in a violent land whose people no longer agree on what is true or reframed? How do performative fictions help us navigate difficult realities?

So the photographs are from four different kinds of venues all across the United States. Briefly summed up, those include:

• Immersive, realistic military training scenarios on military bases around the country, established to train service members who are about to deploy — We can talk about the details of those.
• A second category from Model Citizens, the United States border patrol Academy, again, immersive, realistic training scenarios. There are cultural role players, civilians hired and cast in both of those contexts to enact the non-citizens, to enact the local villagers, to enact the “illegal aliens” threats.
• Then the museum. The installation includes photographs from American historical museums, often honoring past wars, and I found myself drawn to the staging of Americans as heroic victors or innocent victims.
• Lastly, “Save America” rallies dedicated to Donald Trump. I visited six of those in different cities across the United States, and the idea is to combine apparently unrelated sites representing sort of a governmental staging of a militarized Americanness civil society in the form of museums disseminating messages about who Americans are and what we value.
• And then the performance of citizens by part of society, so that these disparate elements I propose in the show are forming a whole.

And the method of installation is meant to disorient while inviting curiosity and close looking to get people thinking about what they’re being shown, to look closely, to discern, is this staged? Is it a simulation? Is it real? What does that mean? And to start asking questions, to be able to harness that into conversation.

© Debi Cornwall, Insurgent (Necessary Fictions)

Paola Chapdelaine: Amazing. And how does it feel?

Debi Cornwall: It’s overwhelming in the best way, to see eight years of work up on the wall in this spectacular space, and to have the opportunity… One of the unique aspects of any festival, but particularly this one that is so professionally put together, so large and so central to sort of a European photography scene, is that artists get to see people interacting with the work in space. I learned so much by watching people looking and talking about the work. There was a young French couple who walked up to one of the images the other day as I happened to be in the space. It was the picture of a black American soldier with a flat helmet, and you can see the sweat on his brow and his lashes. They had walked right up to it, they were inspecting it, and they were kind of having a debate. So I offered my services. I said, do you have a question? They responded, We’re trying to figure out, “Is this real?” And I said, “that is the question I want you to be asking.”

Paola Chapdelaine: I love where you’re going at with this because during my time at ICP, it’s funny how there were two instrumental figures to how I developed my work. That was Mackenzie [Calle]. And Mackenzie introducing me to you (“You need to go take Debi’s course!”) — and to recognize yourself in a bit of a movement in time. You know, photography is evolving, and there is a new way that we can approach documentary photography. It’s no longer just “this fly on the wall,” there is also an intention. And so, when you’re talking about how it’s like a blur between the real and the non-real… that’s something I also get a little bit in my work. It’s so great to feel like you’re sort of echoing….

Debi Cornwall: It’s such an important insight that we all work in lineage. And I want to say whether it ends up in the article or not, I am in lineage with artists like An-My Lê. She’s a Vietnamese American artist who very famously photographed the same training scenarios in one of the 10 locations I later went to, 29 palms. She looked at it through the lens of a Vietnamese American refugee who, in order to get access to the games in North Carolina, had to enact the role of a Vietnamese villager in a Vietnam oriented board game. So that’s a distinct framing, and I’m coming15 years later with my own perspective and my own framing, but I love that you are thinking about lineage, and I’ve been thinking a lot about how we work in lineage, and what choices we make. What are our obligations, even to acknowledge lineage and to attribute and to honor our colleagues as members of community?

Paola Chapdelaine: I love that so much, and yes, I think being a photographer can feel lonely. At the end of the day, you’re on your own in your little cocoon, wrestling with all your internal questions and artistic choices. So I think it’s really important to have people that can sort of echo back, that you can look at and be inspired by… and sort of build upon or around.

Debi Cornwall: And then for me, as a teacher at ICP, to see students like you, students like Mackenzie, sort of taking whatever the material is in the class and making it your own, building on it and creating your own practice that will then be someone else’s lineage going forward, that is the most exciting thing.

Paola Chapdelaine: That’s great. So going back to your projects, you’re talking about how you’re showing the US military staging. These scenarios, these training simulations and portraying themselves as either innocent victims or heroes. I’m curious if you know what the echo from the US Army is. Do you know how they feel about your project?

Debi Cornwall: You know what I have found? I sent a copy of Necessary Fictions when it was published to the veteran who oversaw the scenarios at the Marine Corps Air ground combat center in 29 Palms, California, where I visited four times. I got to know him the best, had the most access and spent the most time there. And he loved it. I have no idea how much of the text he read, if any… One thing I have found, well a couple things, and that’s the extent of my knowledge of the military reaction. A/ Bureaucracy has a blind spot. So there’s the sense that “if we govern your access, you will disseminate the message we want you to disseminate.” But there’s also on the personal side… If we are professional and friendly and reliable and honest about what we’re doing, then that goes a very long way.

© Debi Cornwall, Issa A (Necessary Fictions)

Paola Chapdelaine: Yes, absolutely. I think it gives hope to the artistic community, that, you can have your critical opinions, and this is democracy. There’s free speech and and people can recognize even the criticisms about their world, without feeling defensive about it. But it’s like a different outlook that they’ve never been confronted with.

Debi Cornwall: Yes, a lot of the European interviewers that I’ve spoken with this week have asked, how is this work received in the United States? And I don’t know yet. This is the first time the work is being shown. But I work very hard to create and install the work in such a way that it invites the gaze, no matter what your political beliefs, I am not telling you what to think. This work is not about my political opinion. And this is the other thing I’m sure we talked about in class: photographs as Rorschach test. They are an inkblot. We bring our lived experience to looking at photographs. So what I’m doing is creating a context in juxtaposing these elements that hopefully steers an analysis or a set of questions and poses them and invites you into that questioning process. But I’m not connecting all the dots, that’s your job as the critical viewer, and you will come to your own conclusion.

Paola Chapdelaine: Yes, and I think that’s one of the most important things I’ve learned in the past couple years/months. A lot of the times the most powerful work doesn’t tell you what to think. It’s difficult, in this context where there’s so much going on… wars, climate change, etc. Sometimes you want to be an activist!

Debi Cornwall: Well, I think this is a really important question. And we talked about this in class too. Who do you want to be? We get to choose, right? And if you want to be an activist, using your camera as a tool for change, more power to you. I decided I had done that in a different capacity. In my past professional life as a lawyer, I made an impact in people’s lives. I made change. It did that. If I want to be an activist, and I want to make change that is concrete, I know how to do that. And for me, it’s not using a camera. I am not using my camera to inform. I’m using my camera to ask and to provoke others, to invite others to be a part of that process of asking and engaging.

Paola Chapdelaine: And it’s a perfect transition to what I was going to ask next. How did you do that! I would love to talk about your former career. At which stage did you decide that you wanted to be a photographer? And a second part to that question: how did your past career inform or help you in your current in your current role?

Debi Cornwall: Well, I had been a photographer before my law career, that had been what I wanted to do. I was an AP stringer my senior year in college, I took some classes at RISD, and all I knew was social documentary, black and white. I interned for Mary Ellen Mark in the summer of 1993. I thought, “This is what I want to do.” I didn’t get the newspaper job, so I ended up getting another job as an investigator and trial assistant for the public defender’s office, and that led me to law school and to practice as a civil rights attorney. After 12 years of that practice, I realized as much as I identified with the work and as urgent as I found it, as important as I found it, it wasn’t serving me personally, because I was fueled by outrage. I had chronic insomnia. I didn’t have room for my own life and my loved ones. So I negotiated a three month sabbatical with my partners, and I went away, I traveled, and suddenly I was sleeping through the night, and I was reconnecting with people in my life. I was in the world, and my clients were well taken care of, and I realized it’s okay to contemplate living differently. I took some time, and then decided I wanted to step toward a creative life, to engage with questions that mattered to me. But instead of bringing out outrage. What about curiosity? What about connecting with people instead of doing battle?

© Debi Cornwall, Old town (Necessary Fictions)

Paola Chapdelaine: Absolutely, there was something missing, and you found it in photography. And I wonder how it might have helped you or informed your current photographic practice.

Debi Cornwall: Very much so. I mean, our lived experience informs how we make and how we think, right? And we have expertise, whether we know it or not, you don’t have to have had a first other separate life or career to have an expertise that is not photographic, that can inform your ways of looking and making and thinking. For me, the nature of the work I did as a lawyer was very intensive research, very intensive negotiation, and it was putting pieces together from disparate sources to illuminate systems and to make systemic change. So that balance, looking at the specific to think systemically is really baked in to the way I approach the world, and has completely come to inform how I create meaning visually. And with disparate layers, juxtaposing things that don’t seem to go together, and trying to create fractured wholes, whether in book form or installation.

Paola Chapdelaine: And this speaks so well to your film (which I saw for the first time, actually). It was so great to discover a new piece of the project. People were fascinated.

And what are the biggest challenges that you faced as a photographer?

Debi Cornwall: Believing that I could and having the patience to let the work evolve as it did. You know, it’s been 10 years now, but the way you work as a lawyer is you’re on deadline, and as a plaintiff’s lawyer in the United States and civil cases, nothing happens unless you make it happen. So it’s a constant process of pushing, making and negotiating. Creative ideas… that’s not how it works. And it has been a process of discovery for me, that actually, you can’t muscle through creating an idea. Instead, it needs time to percolate in the back of your mind, while you’re taking a walk, while you’re doing other things. So I’ve learned to give space to the ideas, and time. And I do lots of hand gestures when I describe my process. It’s… Have an idea, do a deep dive of research. Come back up, negotiate access somewhere. Go and do it. Come back, see what you got. That generally leads to another research rabbit hole. Come back. Negotiate. Make pictures. Gather. Come back and assess and refine. Gather. My arms are going wide. Right? So it’s in these different dimensions, and it takes time to feel out the sweet spot.

© Debi Cornwall, Judgement Scenario 1

Paola Chapdelaine: And how did you start discovering that: “I can’t just muscle through”? Was it a very personal journey of discovering what the creative process was, or were you guided?

Debi Cornwall: Yes, I think it’s different for everybody. I think there’s some universals — I think not muscling through is a universal. But the other thing that really helped me was starting small. My first project was on Guantanamo Bay…

Paola Chapdelaine: Starting small?! I’m joking, but…

Debi Cornwall: Yes you are! But! went and I had this idea, “I’m going to photograph Guantanamo off duty.” And they said, “Gitmo is the best posting a soldier ever had.” So I said, “Okay, show me the fun.” So I looked at the fun. And I kept going back, only… and I kind of workshopped it. I did a Masterclass, and they said, “If you’re going to photograph the barbecues at Guantanamo Bay, you need to make the best version of that barbecue picture.” Right? So I just sort of obsessively kept going back and thinking, “Okay, this is the concept. How do I make the best picture that advances that concept?” And that’s all that was, all I had in my head, because we haven’t seen the fun of Guantanamo. That’s gonna get eyes on Guantanamo. And “Oh, wait, there’s a gift shop.” Unremarkable, because, of course, there’s a gift shop. That’s how Americans roll. It was only when I came back and talked to people that they were like, “Maybe you should look at the gift shop.” So, “Oh yeah, right, that’s a different element. Okay, I’m gonna just look at the gift shop. I’m just gonna buy out the gift shop and look at the souvenirs.” That’s a different thing. Then once that work had gotten in the world, I had the credibility to go photograph my original idea of the men who’d been cleared and released, and then I just focused on them. But by the time I got there, my thinking about how to represent their experience as cleared and released men or traumatized in trying to rebuild their lives around the world had been completely influenced by my experience at Guantanamo that I never intended to do in the first place, of photographing without being allowed to represent any faces. So okay, I’ve had this experience. It feels like a denial of personhood at Guantanamo. These guys are back in the world. Their bodies are free, but they are forever marked by that trauma. “I’m going to photograph them as though they’re still there, not showing their faces,” right? But it was one thing at a time. I did not have a grand vision of a book or installation or any of it. It was: “I’m going to focus on the fun. How can I do that the best I can, given the limitations on my access?” Okay, right, then, “I’m going to do the souvenirs.” “I’m going to learn how to do a product shot. I don’t know how to do that, right?” Making it up as you go along, you learn the tools you need to. — Good morning! Um…Carolyn Drake.

© Debi Cornwall, Flagraising

Paola Chapdelaine: (!!) So… that begs me to ask: you have a special talent for negotiating access, clearly. How did you do that? Do you have a special way to… refine the art of negotiation, continuing to knock on those doors when you’re trying to get to some place? How did you figure it out?

Debi Cornwall: Well, it’s researching who’s in charge, which is not always apparent. It’s finding the sweet spot of the professional request that is truthful and general enough so that when you do get in, they’re not going to say, “Well, you didn’t ask for this specific thing, so I’m not going to give it to you,” right? It’s navigating those things. But I think it’s very, very, very important for all of us in seeking access to sites that are not publicly available to accurately represent who we are and what we’re doing. You don’t have to tell the whole truth, but you do have to tell the truth, because if you cheating and scheming is going to hurt your credibility in the short term, maybe in the long term, definitely and it’s going to cost your colleagues’ ability to do their jobs, right? So we all have to find that sweet spot for ourselves.

Paola Chapdelaine: Absolutely. Do you have a best memory of your career at this time looking back?

Debi Cornwall: I mean, this is… This week has been unlike anything I have experienced before.

© Debi Cornwall, The Embrace 2

Paola Chapdelaine: I can believe you. You know, the context of this interview is the Lenscratch Photographer on Photographer series, it’s quite tailored to early career photographers. So I’m curious: are there things you wish you had known when you started as a photographer?

Debi Cornwall: Well, when I started as a photographer (we’re talking the 90s), at that time, I had no idea that there was an alternative to being a photojournalist or a social documentarian in the mold of Mary Ellen Mark. And there was, but it was not… It did not feel accessible to me at the time. So I think for those coming up now it’s learn the rules so you can break them. Art can be anything. And I think back when I was starting out, before my detour, we only looked at photographers in my photography classes. And I have found from my own practice and that I’ve translated into teaching. As you know, I think it is very important for those who are not photojournalists, for those who are visual makers, look at the broad range of media, to look at film, to look at visual arts, look at sculpture. What moves you? How is it operating? How is it making meaning? The world of your making is open, commensurate with how vast your your inputs are.

Paola Chapdelaine: I love that you’re talking about the absence of… seeing that there could be something else apart from those models you had around you. It makes me loop back a little bit to when we talked about lineage and community, whereby sometimes, because you don’t know something is possible… You don’t even seek out anything else outside of your bubble. And it’s starting to see the trailblazers, people who are stepping out of those boundaries, pushing those boundaries. And you feel like, “Oh, I didn’t know you could do that.” And I identify with your career, because I studied political science, then I was in international development, blah, blah, blah… And in the corporate world for a couple years. So I didn’t know that there could be a life outside of “you go to school and you find yourself a regular job and you…

Debi Cornwall: …climb a ladder because it’s in front of you.”

© Debi Cornwall, Casualty

Paola Chapdelaine: Exactly. And all throughout my education, nobody ever told me you could work independently. You can be a creative, and it was such a mind blowing realization.

Debi Cornwall: Right? Gotta be that person while I’m here. Yes, it is possible to live differently — whether it is financially sustainable is a very different question!

Paola Chapdelaine: Which transitions into my next question! How did you do that? You speak about how this project is eight year in the making…

Debi Cornwall: And I should say Model Citizens was literally two years from concept to now, which is much too fast for a book and an installation, but all of the work on view started in 2016.

Paola Chapdelaine: Got it. So, there is this sentiment that, when we are working on long form documentary, 99% of the time this is all really self-driven. And people start coming in or sponsoring when you’re kind of at the end. It’s like the chicken or egg: how do you make this work if you haven’t earned the money from the work? So how do you find those ways to sustain yourself, to find the opportunities that allow you to continue working in that very personal manner? Something that’s completely truthful to you without outside influence?

Debi Cornwall: Oh, several answers. But the first one that comes to mind is that my workflow starts at my computer, and that’s brought in from my past life as a lawyer, but I am oriented toward deadlines in writing. I find writing soothing, so the bulk of my practice is not carrying a camera. The bulk of my practice is researching opportunities, grants, fellowships, awards, working on project statements, working on grant proposals, getting them in. And you look at people from the outside and you think, “Oh, they won this award, there. They won that award. They’re so successful.” 99.9% of the time, the answer is No. So imagine how many times, how many proposals you’ve got to put in to get the one. It only takes one yes for a project to come together and for a new momentum to begin. But that’s 99 failed grant proposals, but they’re not failures, because they’re helping you crystallize your thinking, crystallize your pitch. How are people going to hear it? Are they going to get it? So it’s a critical part of the work, but it takes a lot of time.

© Debi Cornwall, Green Screen

Paola Chapdelaine: And I remember you showing us… We addressed all the grants that you were looking at, that were on your radar. And I remember being blown away, because 90% of those little logos of whichever organization it was… I thought: I have no idea what this is.

Debi Cornwall: Research. And we talked about this, but it’s, again, getting out of the photography bubble. So whatever your project is, it’s photography, and that’s one kind of grant. But it’s also about… Give me a subject matter. What are you looking at right now? Anything.

Paola Chapdelaine: Right now? Violence networks.

Debi Cornwall: Violence networks, okay. So that could be… it could be national security. It could be gun violence. Is it a book? Is it so you can look at the subject matter? Which really, like in the case of Guantanamo for example, I looked at criminal justice, I looked at human rights, I looked at national security. Who’s funding artworks on those issues? I wanted it to be a book: that’s a funding area. It’s photography. That’s a funding area, right? So you can divide your subject matter, and it’s an important exercise for all of us to do. That is your next research keyword.

Paola Chapdelaine: For funders, absolutely. So it’s both. It can be the theme, but it can also be the medium of the output.

Debi Cornwall:  Yes, if we’re only looking for photography grants, then that’s a lot of people applying for the same grant. There’s got to be another avenue.

Paola Chapdelaine: And that’s the thing I feel like we’re all very focused on. Those big grand grants that everybody’s applying to, and…

Debi Cornwall: …and then only one person wins them each year. It’s ridiculous, yes. And again, there’s an arbitrariness to who wins these things. It’s a… you know… Who’s in the pool? Who’s on the jury? What’s happening in the world that provides context? Who’s won it last year? You know? So we throw it out there, and you can’t… We can’t get our hopes up and depend [on them]. Our careers are not going to rise or fall on whether we get the next grant. You’ve got to see the long view, trust in your vision, and it will find its audience.

© Debi Cornwall, Mock Border Wall

Paola Chapdelaine: Yes, I love that. It makes me hopeful, because, sometimes, you work really hard, and then it can be the cold shower when you’re putting in the work regardless of the outcome. It’s really the mindset to have. Sometimes…we’re a little short sighted. So it hurts.

Debi Cornwall: It’s so personal. The other thing is, I gave a talk recently to elite high school students at a private school in New York. It was at their morning assembly, hundreds of kids. And I said, “You know what? I’m not gonna give them, my typ… They wanted to talk about Guantanamo. I’m not gonna give them what they want from me. I’m going to organize my talk around a theme of failure.” That’s what I needed to hear when I was them growing up. And I think for photographers as well, let’s embrace failure as opportunity, right? It’s going to happen. What do I learn from it? What doors does it open that I wasn’t even aware of? You know, I want to photograph men released from Guantanamo. They do not respond to my initial inquiries. I go to Guantanamo, and suddenly doors open, and I have a much better understanding of how to photograph those men when I do finally connect with them, right? Pick your example in your own lives and your own practices. Reframing failure as part of a creative process and as opening doors has been really helpful for me.

Paola Chapdelaine: That’s awesome. I love it. Very last question: although I think all of this is actually relevant to it, but any final advice for someone who’s early in their photography career?

Debi Cornwall: You have heard me say this before, and I say this to everyone coming up with particular emphasis on those who identify as women and First Nations and photographers of color… When you feel that insecurity and when you feel gripped by it, look at it and set aside your disbelief and choose to believe that you can.

Paola Chapdelaine: What a great way to wrap up. Thank you Debi.

© Debi Cornwall, Number One

Debi’s new book, Model Citizens can be ordered here

Paola Chapdelaine is a French photojournalist and documentary photographer based in New York City and member of Women Photograph. With a degree in Political Science and Urban Development, she began her career in the public and development sector before transitioning to photojournalism in 2020. She relocated to Montreal in 2021, covering news for AFP and various media outlets, and graduated in May 2023 from the Documentary Practice & Visual Journalism program at the International Center of Photography, where she received the Director’s Fellowship. There, she developed her project “Silent Radar” which explores the liminal space between physical and virtual reality, collaborating with users of the VRChat platform. Recently, she has worked with The New York Times, the Washington Post, New York Magazine and The New Republic. Paola recently founded a mentorship program for early-career women photographers: Stories Not Singles.

Instagram: @paolachapdelaine

© Paola Chapdelaine, Compass, Radar (April 2023)

© Paola Chapdelaine, Green Screen (April 2023)

© Paola Chapdelaine, Gazebo (February, 2023)