This Incredibly Boring House Is a U.K. Terror Suspect's Lockdown

Control Order House is the only existing photographic study of a residence occupied by a person under a UK control order.
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The Global War on Terror has been presented in the media mostly with images of nighttime tracer fire, IED explosions, fatigued soldiers and Guantanamo razor wire – depicting a spectacle easily dismissed as happening "over there," far from western suburbia.

By contrast, Edmund Clark's photographs of an unremarkable British semi-detached home makes the amorphous war relateable. Control Order House is a top-to-bottom survey of a three-bedroomed residence in which a pre-trial, UK terror suspect lives under house arrest.

Control orders are a Parliament-sanctioned form of detention without trial which were introduced in Britain as part of the 2005 Prevention of Terrorism Act. Between 2005 and January 2012, 52 men were placed under control orders and subject to various constraints including 16 hour daily curfews, electronic tagging and daily in-person reporting to a police station or by phone to a security switchboard. Controlled persons were also ordered to remain within predetermined geographies which could be as small as a few square miles or as large as UK borders.

Control Order House is the only existing photographic study of a residence occupied by a person under a UK control order. It is not an exposé, however. Given the legal sensitivities, every image was vetted by UK government officials. Clark was not allowed to reveal the identity of the terror suspect – referred to in legal documents as "CE" – nor his location.

"To reveal CE's identity would be an offence and in breach of the court-imposed anonymity order," says Clark. "All the photographs I took or the documents I wanted to use had to be screened by the Home Office."

Strategically, Clark has decided to release Control House Order as a book. In addition to redacted legal documents, handwritten notes from CE and architectural plans of the house, the book reproduces contact sheets of all 500+ images made in the house and presents them in the order they were made.

The book – which Clark refers to as "an object of control" – is an exploration of the evidentiary nature of images and documents. Clark moved through the house almost forensically, documenting the hitherto invisible space. His methodology is embedded in the images' order.

"The photographs evoke both surveillance and claustrophobia," says Clark of the book. "It gives form to one of the locations where the control order experience took place. We are looking at the control imposed by the state on an individual and the implications this has for his personal and familial stability."

It's not the first time Clark has focused on domestic interiors to jolt viewers from assumptions about given topics. Guantanamo: If The Light Goes Out juxtaposed images of Guantanamo Bay detention camps with shots of the interior of a former detainee's UK home. Similarly, Still Life: Killing Time focused on the medical aids and personal belongings of infirm inmates in the geriatric wing of a British prison.

"I see images as visual histories which explore these issues in terms of the impact on the individuals concerned," says Clark. "By using the prism of home to question representations of ‘them’ and ‘us,' in wider social and political terms."

At a point, Clark accepted that, with so many attached limitations, his photography was almost an extension of the state power he was documenting. All of his equipment had to be itemized and registered with the UK Home Office before his visit.

"Even CE's lawyers made it clear to me that the I had to careful about what I spoke to him about because the house was (very probably) bugged and that my telephone communication with him would be monitored," explains Clark. "All my material, even my words here [in this interview] could become part of CE's case."

It took two years of negotiations until Clark secured access, an outcome many thought unlikely. Eventually, a barrister who was familiar with Clark's Guantanamo work introduced Clark to the solicitor representing CE. The solicitor made the approach on Clark's behalf.

"Once CE agreed to work with me I could apply to the Home Office for access. The protocol was that the request had to be done by CE via his lawyers," says Clark. "I think the Home Office let me do it because they couldn't stop me once CE had applied without adding to his control conditions and without risking a potentially difficult public legal wrangle."

Front and back elevations of the house in which CE resides. The front elevation is on the front cover of Clark's book. Likewise, the back elevation is on the back cover.

Clark did not record an interview with CE as any recording would be subject to Home Office scrutiny and the case as a whole. At the request of CE's lawyers, Clark also has not divulged any details of what CE said about his experience living under the control order.

"CE is invisible, but he haunts the images like a ghost," says Clark. "CE's cat is the only living presence in the images. The cat had the freedom to come and go as it pleased through an upstairs back window."

Clark's images were shot in December 2011 and January 2012, right about when control orders were replaced by Terrorist Prevention and Investigation Measures (TPIMs), to which eight men are currently subject.

Control orders never existed without controversy. Dozens of men, including CE, were relocated in a process that critics condemned as “internal exile." Under a control order, a person could go to a designated place of worship but not to airports or ports, travel agents or money transfer bureaus. Suspects required prior permission for social gatherings and were prohibited from contact with other named individuals. Controlled persons were issued Home Office mobile phones for calls and denied home internet access.

TPIMs are considered less onerous in the restrictions placed on the individual, but the application of TPIMs can still "hinge on secret evidence" according to Clark. Approvals are often informed by closed judgments, based on closed materials which are not seen by lawyers for the defense.

"The outline case against CE reads persuasively. It is hard not to have a suspicion," says Clark who came to know his subject's case inside and out. "A suspicion is all the judge and Home Secretary had to think [to approve the order]."

During the high court proceedings, a judge may not hear evidence tested or challenged as it would be in a common law trial.

"Evidence heard in private was either too incomplete to present in court, or came from sources that were inadmissible or could not be revealed e.g. from phone taps, bugging, paid informants, covert personnel or foreign intelligence sources the Home Office did not wish to compromise," explains Clark. "CE’s lawyers were effectively trying to disprove a suspicion – without knowing where the evidence had come from or what it was."

As familiar as Clark became with CE's case, he is not an advocate for CE or others like him. He accepts that photography is only one way to interrogate the issue of control orders, homeland security and the contested legal territories of the Global War on Terror.

"There are arguments for and against the necessity, effectiveness and fairness of control orders and TPIMs. I do not seek to persuade the reader one way or another; it is for politicians, lawyers and activists to argue their cases," he says.

All images: Edmund Clark.

The book Control Order House, published by HERE Press is released May 2nd, 2013.