Amna Suraka prison and torture chamber in northern Iraq. By artist & photographer Ben Hodson скачать в хорошем качестве

Amna Suraka prison and torture chamber in northern Iraq. By artist & photographer Ben Hodson

Amna Suraka I spent an hour on my own documenting the inside of the worst place I have been in my life. 3,000+ photos. At one point the electricity failed and I was left in complete darkness, it was emotional. I want the work to reveal this space to you. However, the restricted view a single image gives you, only allows you to view small areas at a time. Like the way my eyes darted around the space, you are forced to slowly see every inch. Some images are blurred or badly focused this is fine. The buildings themselves are littered with bullet holes and grenade damage. These mark the battles during the 1991 uprising, when local Kurds in Iraq took control of this Baath Regime prison in the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniya. Old tanks from the Iraqi military line one wall of the courtyard. The buildings have not been restored, remaining as a museum memorializing the cruelty of Saddams regime. There is no official museum text to welcome you, the prison is left exactly as it was 18 years ago. I was taken to the secret prison, where the Baath regime had interrogated, tortured and killed Kurdish prisoners. We walk through rooms where women experienced torture and rape. The bedding and plates have been left exactly as they were when the captives were set free. I peered into solitary confinement cells, where prisoners wrote or scratched messages or poems into the walls. These cells seem too small to stand up or lie down in, its then that I realise that this place was designed for evil.