Jack Latham: Sugar Paper Theories

Photographer's Profile:
Jack is a freelance photographer, born and raised in Wales, now living and working in Brighton. He has received many accolades, including:
- Paris Photo-Aperture First PhotoBook Award Shortlist, 2016
- Paul Huf Award Nominee, 2016
- Bar Tur Photobook Award, 2015
- GPF Photographic Award Shortlist, 2015
- Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, 2015
- Magnum Student Award Shortlist, 2015
- MagnumIdeastap Photographic Award, 2015


Project Description:
Forty years ago, two men went missing in southwest Iceland. The facts of their disappearances are scarce, and often mundane. An 18-year-old set off from a nightclub, drunk, on a 10-kilometre walk home in the depths of Icelandic winter. Some months later, a family man failed to return from a meeting with a mysterious stranger. In another time or place, they might have been logged as missing persons and forgotten by all but family and friends. Instead, the Gudmundur and Geirfinnur case became the biggest and most controversial murder investigation in Icelandic history. In the 1970s, theories about the disappearances fixated on Iceland’s anxieties over smuggling, drugs and alcohol, and the corrupting influence of the outside world. But ultimately, a group of young people on the fringes of society became key protagonists. All made confessions that led to convictions and prison sentences. Yet none could remember what happened on the nights in question. Now a public inquiry is uncovering another story, of how hundreds of days and nights in the hands of a brutal and inexperienced criminal justice system eroded the link between the suspects’ memories and lived experience. I photographed the places and people that feature in various accounts of what happened to Gudmundur and Geirfinnur after they vanished. I also spent time with the surviving suspects, as well as whistleblowers, conspiracy theorists, expert witnesses and bystanders to the case.