At first sight these traditionally framed black and white photos don't seem spectacular. Looked at an other way they don't jump out at you: the compositions are not specified but are based on classic rules of golden ratio proportions. In this way the pictures ask to be examined more thoroughly. Slowly you become fascinated by the warm tonal pallet (for the trainspotters out there: these are on 11x14 inch Ilford warmtone fiber paper) and the harmony in the compositions that also makes the details in the image speak for themselves, like the bars on which a desperate man's hand scrawled NO dozens of times. No no no no... let me out of here, I can’t take this anymore! One word in this tight close-up of the tall steel bars speaks volumes.

The restful atmosphere in this social documentary of the American photographer Corrie McCluskey invites you to contemplate what people have done and continue to do to each other. This is expressed in this photo-series where no human is to be seen anymore. But where the traces of human drama are obvious and subtly visual. At this moment McCluskey is doing Holland with this work, under the title Gevangenschap/ Incarceration; she is showing two series: Alcatraz and Living in the Shadows of the Past in the Fotogalerie Objektief in Enschede, that in June is going to Fotogalerie Lichtzone in Groningen. While these exhibitions are being shown a more expansive showing of Alcatraz is taking place at Galerie De Opsteker in Amsterdam.

The series Living in the Shadows of the Past came into being after a visit to the Nazi camps at Terezin/Theresienstadt and Auschwitz/Birkenau with Pavel Stransky, a Czech who survived both camps and now works as a guide in Terezin. The fact that in Amsterdam only Alcatraz is to be seen shows that both series have two completely different backgrounds and weren't intended to be confronted with each other like in Enschede—so assures Corrie McCluskey. But she agrees that the photographic fall-out from both projects actually contain a very similar likeness that shows the drama that people had to endure and for what ever reason were caged and treated inhumanely. "The inhumanity of the Holocaust is without reservation completely clear, but in the notoriously famous Alcatraz prison, there were not only murderers but in many cases they were just petty criminals. Visiting the tiny island in San Francisco Bay, following in the footsteps of the prisoners and the guards you cannot escape the haunting feeling that it must have been hell for both. The endless quiet chill of the cellblocks, the corridors and large spaces speak volumes of the hopelessness, boredom and mind-numbing daily routine. Not for nothing it was called 'Hellcatraz' by the prisoners, " so says Corrie McCluskey. She points to the other wall at the series Living in the Shadows of the Past. "What ever the end result, in both situations you find similar inhumanity, loneliness and the same desperation. People tried to escape the Nazi camps as well as Alcatraz. The camps where places of pure horror, Alcatraz was the worst place on earth to be held prisoner." What attracted her to these completely different but somewhat similar depressing places? "I'm endlessly interested in the soul of these historic places, with their implicit memories of the past that can still be felt in the present. You let yourself be taken in by a place like that and with the help of my camera I study how a space can have a life of its own because of the people and events it once contained. Many of my images reflect how people left a space behind like a shedded skin. The motivation to learn about the holocaust camps is from when I was in grade school when I heard a holocaust survivor talk. I was 13 years old when I read The Diary of Anne Frank and slowly discovered an interest in the social and political history of the Second World War. How governments and their leaders could gain the power and perform deeds that millions of people could not even imagine. I wanted to get in touch with the past of those places where these tragedies occurred by seeing it with my own eyes. As a photographer I had a desire to capture places that are difficult to look at because we do not want to see or they do not want us to see. Like the exquisite washing room in a Nazi camp where no prisoner ever set foot, was only seen by camp inspectors. By looking at these images we discover something in ourselves and from our past that we want to reject or forget. That was my way of making silent witnesses. Come think about it, these places where people are dehumanized still exist. And will continue to do so until we do something to stop it.

Tubantia, De Twentsche Courant (NL), May 8, 2002