Sites of Control: Anatomy of a Scapegoat

‘Sites of Control: Anatomy of a Scapegoat’ explores the pervasive presence of structures of incarceration — both within and beyond institutional walls — and their entanglement with colonial legacies. Focusing on the Netherlands, it examines how prison and the criminalisation of migration reproduce cycles of scapegoating, alienation and systemic violence. The work critiques the dehumanisation within prison systems, from architecture and administrative mechanisms to the psychology of carceral identity.

Through video, sound, performance, and archival material, the installation foregrounds voices often silenced or bureaucratised: prisoners, guards, wardens and refugees. Drawing on field research at Esserheem prison in Veenhuizen and refugee centres in Ter Apel, it reveals how colonial narratives are sanitised through political rhetoric while continuing to shape policy and lived experience. The project calls for the urgent decolonisation of European prison systems, asking how society might imagine futures of justice and accountability without erasing the histories that continue to inform the present.