All posts filed under: From the Archive

Invisible Institute: Chicago Police Torture Archive

Published by

CHICAGO POLICE TORTURE ARCHIVE On Monday, February 15th at 6:30pm, join the Invisible Institute, Chicago Torture Justice Center, Chicago Torture Justice Memorials, and the Pozen Center for Human Rights to honor the history and struggle of survivors and their families, and commemorate the launch of the Chicago Police Torture Archive. VISIT THE ARCHIVE JOIN THE LAUNCH EVENT “The Chicago Police Torture Archive is a human rights documentation of former Commander Jon Burge’s violence against more than 100 Black men, from the 1970s-1990s. The journalistic centerpiece of this site are the profiles of police torture survivors, most of whom were represented by the People’s Law Office of Chicago. “The People’s Law Office (PLO), which had worked alongside activists and in the courts to hold the City to account, donated its files to the Pozen Center for Human Rights at the University of Chicago in 2017. Pozen, in turn, asked the Invisible Institute to digitize, curate, and publish the legal archive. Our goal is to make these digitized records accessible to the public and to complement the …

*InstArchive* on Instagram

Published by

I’m trying something new because I’m American and tradition is boring we are made to think/believe/made to think is make believe. Everyday on my Instagram (@amandarivkin) I am posting a new image from my archive that is paired with a bit of “on this day in world history”. It’s how I’m taking it to the streets, building the ol’ personal brand, sharing my love of history, and finding meaning in my own work. It’s only a few days old but already we’ve been to Davenport, Iowa; Baku, Azerbaijan; Reyhanli, Turkey and today Spotsylvania, Virginia. Czech it out! MAY 9: On May 9, 2012, Obama announced his support for gay marriage in a television interview with Robin Roberts. In this image from my archive, witness Connie Fuller, 39, takes a picture of Rock Island, Illinois couple (l-r) Curtis Harris, 50, and Daren Adkisson, 39, after they picked up their marriage license first thing in the morning at the Scott County Recorder’s Office the first day same sex weddings are legal across Iowa in Davenport, Iowa on …

From the Archive: The United States of AmeriKitsch

Published by

* “Kitsch is the inability to admit that shit exists.” – Milan Kundera Kitsch has the potential to unite all people, irrespective of culture, background, or elitist pretensions. Objects we acquire or accumulate have no meaning until we provide it. The uses for kitsch are infinite. Milan Kundera notes that kitsch is not just the “inability to admit that shit exists,” but also it is the natural aesthetic of all politicians. Last fall in a video interview for Fortnight Journal, I suggested that kitsch might just outlive us all – even the politicians. Yet most moments of pure kitsch happen far away from electoral politics, geopolitics, and the global spotlight. Kitsch injects sentimental into the otherwise mundane. Bob Dylan said “even the President of the United States must have to stand naked,” yet how naked can you be when your person has become part of a larger cult of presidential kitsch? Does kitsch protect? As I prepare to leave the USA for a Fulbright grant to Azerbaijan, I thought it was time to look back …

From the Archive: Cordoba and “The Edge in Dissent”

Published by

“Cordoba had the edge in dissent,” begins Pakistani writer and commentator Tariq Ali in a section devoted to the one-time intellectual capitol of Al-Andalus, the once Muslim southern half of contemporary Spain that is home to one of the most spectacular works of Islamic architecture, The Mezquita, in his larger post-September 11 work, The Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity. Much has happened in the ever-complicated relationship between mine and Ali’s country in the last week since U.S. Navy Seals raided, killed and then buried at sea Osama bin Laden, who it turns out has spent several of the past fugitive years in an elaborate compound just off Kakul Road, the drive leading to Pakistan’s elite military academy equivalent to Sandhurst in the U.K. or West Point here in the U.S. The compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan was just 40 kilometers from the capital Islamabad. Not even former President and Head of the Pakistani Army Pervez Musharraf received such treatment, although he did assert he had gone jogging in the area in the past. The …

From the Archive: Europop Diplomacy

Published by

Two weeks from today, on May 14, the Eurovision Song Contest will take place in Dusseldorf, Germany after last year’s German contestant, Lena, won in Oslo, Norway with her song “Satellite“. More than just a Eurotrash version of American idol, a kitsch showcase, and an evening of Europe at its most fabulous, Eurovision embodies all the finer qualities of true geopolitics: ambition, scale, scope, grandeur, and the embrace of the superficial and culturally symbolic. Quite simply, Eurovision is that Saturday night a cultural kitsch observer waits year round for. While English is the unofficial language of the contest, many contestants still choose to sing in their native languages risking the ire of other competing countries – possibly with competing nationalisms. There is a “Slavic bloc” to speak of when the text message voting comes around at the final stage of the competition. With most Balkan countries putting forth respectably kitschy enough candidates to make it to the finals, usually under the tutelage of grand masters such as Goran Bregovic, the old fault lines of tensions …

From the Archive: The Beginning of a Post-Soviet Dream

Published by

Yesterday, I won a Fulbright (!!!) student scholarship to Azerbaijan. Today I began to reflect on what this might mean and began to think of some images, among many other things, that united me to Azeris and other people in the region. Peculiarly, the first thing that came to mind was this quote from my U.S. passport that anyone who has seen it from Bratislava to Baku (if you were a “Seinfeld” fan you must surely remember, “It’s been a long journey from Milan to Minsk…”) cannot help but memorize, recite and possibly even begin to call me “young man”. One friend sent a note when I received the Fulbright, “Go east, young man,” no doubt a tribute to the Horace Greeley quote in the latest U.S. passport design: “Go west, young man, and grow up with the country.” – Horace Greeley Additionally, I combed through some old images to find a few that united east, and west in some interesting form: (It is the 50th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs, celebrated as a …

From the Archive: Being with “The Bad Guy” on a Big Day

Published by

Qaddafi is a topic of conversation in and of himself, and his family an entirely separate discussion as well. He is the center of gravity of his own regime, naturally. The U.S. has announced it is not engaging in regime change (although not quite in those words), but has struck the compound where he resides with a missile. On another war front, Der Spiegel has announced to an e-mail list of its subscribers that in its print edition to hit news stands tomorrow, it will publish three images of U.S. soldiers posing with dead Afghan civilians. The Washington Post writes, “The photos are among several hundred the Army has sought to keep under wraps as it prosecutes five members of the 5th Stryker Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, for the alleged murders of three unarmed Afghan civilians last year.” The consequences may prove more devastating than the Abu Ghraib scandal. The Guardian follows up with additional details about a dozen members of the unit, already on trial in Seattle and confronting life in prison or the …

From the Archive: Revolutionary Times

Published by

Yesterday, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt resigned after 30 years at the helm of Egypt following 18 days of protests across the nation. Over 300 people are estimated to have died for Egypt’s revolution to succeed. The protests turned violent at times as Mubarak clung to power, yet in the end once the fear barrier was crossed and blood was shed, there was no turning back for the Egyptian people. After 30 years, no Egyptian was prepared to return to living as they had once lived. In my lifetime, the world has witnessed few such truly revolutionary moments. Nineteen eighty nine is the natural crutch or starting point for discussion in the twenty-first century; this is a mistake. Timothy Garton Ash, author of The Polish Revolution, rightly reminded readers of The Guardian that this is not 1989 and nor is it Tehran 1979. Nor is it 1917, 1848, 1789. It is Cairo in 2011. Today, Egypt will wake up with a profound hangover and Egyptians will slowly come to the realization that democracy not only takes …

From the Archive: A Security Fantasia

Published by

This week saw the Obama administration distance itself from a U.S. partner of 30 years, Hosni Mubarak of Egypt, as street demonstrations transformed into street clashes between anti-government protesters and pro-government supporters in Cairo and other Egyptian cities. The consequence of nearly 30 years of ruling Egypt with an iron fist and over $1 billion in security assistance a year from the U.S., the revolution on the streets of Egypt appears to have taken Washington by surprise. Just last week, Vice-President Joe Biden stated that Mubarak was not a dictator and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Sunday morning shows that the longstanding relationship was something the Americans were balancing closely with contemporary events. By mid-week White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs bolstered Obama’s demand that “change must begin now,” more of a faint echo to Obama’s own presidential campaign of 2008 than it was reminiscent of the last time an American president issued an ultimatum to a dictator, by suggesting that “now means yesterday.” In between last week and this week, Foreign Policy ran …

From the Archive: Small Acts of Civil Disobedience Together Can Make a Big Noise

Published by

“Any government that treats its people as the property of the state cannot be tolerated.” – Adam Michnik at the New York Public Library in conversation, “Revolution: A User’s Manual” April 29, 2006 As demonstrations in both Tunisia, which successfully toppled the regime of Zine Al Abidine Ben Ali, and the ongoing siege on the streets of Egyptian cities where the government of (likely) outgoing dictator (sorry, Joe Biden) Hosni Mubarak have shown, small acts of civil disobedience together can make a big noise. From the archive, small acts of civil disobedience. Desmond Lane, 11, with his father, Darick Lane, 38, opponents of the death penalty, during a prayer vigil near the entrance to the Greensville Correctional Center in Jarratt, Va. hours before the 9 p.m. execution of John Allen Muhammad, the so-called “Washington sniper” responsible for gunning down 10 and wounding three in the D.C.-area in 2002, on November 10, 2009. Gov. Tim Kaine refused to grant a stay of clemency and the U.S. Supreme Court turned down the request for a stay of …