Architectures of Exclusion

For The Watch, the show consisted of three works occupying each floor of the former Watch Tower. On the ground floor, the installation in the former room/prison featured the name of Jeremy Bentham along with his birth and death dates, accompanied by a black light bulb placed inside the original lamp.

On the first floor, sculptures made from 'pigeon spikes' resembled bombs or personal mines, evoking themes of deterrence and control.

Finally, on the second floor, the windows were covered with a decorative foil commonly used to obstruct vision while allowing daylight to filter through. Meanwhile, an audio recording played a summary of Discipline and Punish, a text by Michel Foucault that describes Jeremy Bentham's prison project and its influence on architecture and institutional frameworks.

The research I have been conducting for some time explores buildings and architectural features designed to exclude certain beings or to seclude inhabitants, as well as the consequences of such design strategies. For the one-day residency at The Watch, I decided to delve into an ongoing investigation of architectural features associated with spaces such as prisons, borders, or other areas intended to enforce expulsion or rejection from a building or region, or, in some cases, to exercise surveillance over inhabitants.

This exploration stems from studies and visits to the former Hochhausen Prison in Berlin. The research is largely inspired by Michel Foucault’s Discipline & Punish, in which the French philosopher analyzes systems of punishment and social control, drawing on the ideas of British philosopher Jeremy Bentham, the creator of the panopticon—a model for institutional surveillance.