Model Citizens

Model Citizens considers the US as a case study into a global phenomenon: how have staging, performance, and roleplay come to inform thinking about citizenship in a violent land whose people no longer agree on what is true?

The last in a trilogy of books on the American condition, Model Citizens includes photographs from US Border Patrol Academy training scenarios, “Save America” rallies, and history museums. Jarringly juxtaposed images from these apparently unrelated sites illuminate systems that reconcile, justify, or distract from the harsh realities of life in a polarized, militarized society. The design accentuates slippages: images flow across French-fold page turns, just as Cornwall’s practice questions the role of documentary photography in an era of splintered realities.

Debi Cornwall is a multimedia documentary artist who returned to visual expression after a twelve-year career as a civil rights lawyer. While completing her BA in Modern Culture and Media at Brown University, she studied photography at RISD. She then received a JD from Harvard Law School and practiced as a wrongful conviction attorney, also training as amediator. Exhaustive research and negotiation were critical to her advocacy and remain integral to her visual practice.