Opening at NYU’s Kimmel Center for University Life Windows Gallery in December 2012 and traveling to 9 sites (and counting) across the country through at least 2014, the exhibit will explore GTMO’s history from US occupation in 1898 to today’s debates and visions for its future. The exhibit is being developed through a unique collaboration among a growing number of universities as a dialogue among their students, communities, and people with first-hand experience at GTMO. This national conversation on GTMO’s past and why it matters in the present will take place through:

• A physical traveling exhibit on GTMO’s history from 1898 through the present day, featuring images, documentary material, oral histories, video footage, and artwork, with different segments developed by different university partners;
• A digital version of the exhibit featured on the Project’s website;
• Public programs in each community focusing on its local perspective and assets, featuring testimony and analysis by local people with experience at Guantánamo or its related issues, such as refugees held there, people who grew up there, military personnel stationed there, and/or scholars studying issues GTMO’s history raises;
• An ongoing dialogue on the process of developing the exhibit and public response through the Project’s social media;
• Curricula on GTMO’s history and the challenges of remembering and interpreting it for the public, using multi-media materials, available on the Project’s website to be replicated or adapted.

Join the National Dialogue

University interested in engaging your students and community? Get more information or contact

Museum or cultural center interested in hosting the exhibit? See the current schedule and specifics or contact

University Partners in the National Dialogue

Partners to date

• Arizona State University
• Brown University
• Indiana University/Purdue University Indianapolis
• The New School for Public Engagement
• New York University
• Rutgers University New Brunswick
• University of Massachusetts Amherst
• University of Miami
• University of Minnesota
• University of North Carolina at Greensboro
• University of California at Riverside
• University of West Florida

Roles and Resources

Participating universities

• Offer a course on GTMO’s history, or including a segment on GTMO’s history;
• Work with students to research and design a segment of the traveling exhibit or other public memory component (e.g., on-line exhibit, oral histories, public program, research paper), with support from Project staff, historical advisors, and museum consultants;
• Host the exhibit;
• Host and record a public dialogue program with local speakers;
• Coordinate student and public participation in the Project’s social media;
• Contribute funds towards the production and hosting of the exhibit.

The Project hub will…

• Provide sample curricula and a rich body of multi-media teaching resources, including bibliography, images, oral histories, video footage, discussion questions, and other teaching tools;
• Produce and manage the on-line exhibit and all other web-based and social media components;
• Coordinate communication and collaboration among university partners for exhibit development;
• Provide historical and interpretive advisors for exhibit development;
• Support the design and facilitation of public dialogue programs and identifying local speakers with connections to Guantánamo as needed.