Debi Cornwall: Model Citizens
Model Citizens by Debi Cornwall explores the United States as a lens for a global question: How have performance, roleplay, and staged scenarios shaped perceptions of citizenship in a fractured nation where even the concept of truth is contested? The final volume in Cornwall’s trilogy examining the post-9/11 American condition, Model Citizens features images from US Border Patrol Academy simulations, “Save America” rallies, and historical reenactments in museums. By juxtaposing these seemingly disparate scenes, the project highlights systems that rationalize, obscure, or divert attention from the stark realities of life in a polarized, militarized society. The book’s design underscores these themes, with French-fold pages allowing images to bleed into each other, mirroring Cornwall’s critique of the limits of documentary photography in an age of fragmented narratives. The Model Citizens project earned Cornwall the 2023 Prix Elysée, a prestigious biennial prize for mid-career photographers awarded by Photo Elysée Museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. The prize supported the production of the book in dual-language editions, Model Citizens (Radius) and Citoyens Modèles (Éditions Textuel), both released in July 2024 to coincide with Les Rencontres d’Arles de la Photographie.
About the Author
Debi Cornwall is a transdisciplinary documentary artist and former civil rights lawyer whose work integrates photography, film, sound, testimony, and archival materials to interrogate the dynamics of American power.
With a degree in Modern Culture and Media from Brown University and photography training at RISD, Cornwall worked with Mary Ellen Mark and Sylvia Plachy before transitioning to a decade-long legal career specializing in wrongful convictions and mediation. Her background in exhaustive research and negotiation informs her visual practice.
As the 2023 Prix Elysée laureate, Cornwall published Model Citizens (Radius/Textuel), the final installment in her post-9/11 trilogy, and will exhibit at the 2024 Rencontres d’Arles. Her work, recognized with honors including NYSCA, NYFA, and the Leica Women Foto Project Award, has been featured in Art in America, BJP, The New York Times Magazine, and other major publications, and is held in public and private collections.
Cornwall is a faculty member at ICP, where she helps students deepen their creative processes, and she also consults with artists developing long-term projects.
