Debi Cornwall

Debi Cornwall is a multimedia documentary artist who returned to visual expression after a twelve-year career as a civil rights lawyer. She received her BA in Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. She then received a JD from Harvard Law School and practiced as a wrongful conviction attorney. In addition to the Prix Elysée, Debi has been honored with accolades including a NYFA Fellowship in Photography, a NYSCA Individual Artist Grant, an inaugural Leica Women Foto Project Award, and the...See more

Debi Cornwall is a multimedia documentary artist who returned to visual expression after a twelve-year career as a civil rights lawyer. She received her BA in Modern Culture and Media at Brown University. She then received a JD from Harvard Law School and practiced as a wrongful conviction attorney. In addition to the Prix Elysée, Debi has been honored with accolades including a NYFA Fellowship in Photography, a NYSCA Individual Artist Grant, an inaugural Leica Women Foto Project Award, and the Duke University Archive of Documentary Arts Collection Award. Her work has been profiled in Art in America, European Photography Magazine, British Journal of Photography, The New York Times Magazine, and Hyperallergic, and is held in public and private collections around the world. Model Citizens is Cornwall's third Radius book, after Necessary Fictions (2020) and Welcome to Camp America: Inside Guantánamo Bay (2017). She lives in Brooklyn. See less