Your Photo Op with Abby Ghraib

audience participation

 

“She’s the Beauty of Bagram! The Girl from Gitmo! Get your camera ready and get on your knees!” 

This interactive performance intervention was one of a series of artistic responses to torture performed by the US military as part of the War on Terror, the second Iraq War, and the War in Afghanistan. It specifically references the infamous torture photos from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Abby is indebted to 12 years of work with Guillermo Gomez-Peña and La Pocha Nostra.

 “... Abby Ghraib aka Allison Wyper holds up a sign asking about cameras. She selects an unwitting volunteer, walks him to the podium where a noose awaits. Posing the hapless fellow, Ghraib invites gente to create their own home-made torture foto. At $25 a head instead of $1.2 trillion, that’s a bargain souvenir.”
 –Michael Sedano, audience member

Performance History:

  • 2013: Zero Down: A Performance Art Group Show. 1019 WEST Artist Studios, Los Angeles

  • 2011: Los Dopplegangers with Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Richard Montoya, UCLA Fowler Museum

  • 2011: Strange Democracy with Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Hammer Museum

  • 2008: Alien Body with Sara Shelton Mann, Violeta Luna, and Guillermo Gómez-Peña, NOHspace, San Francisco

Writings: