Forensic Architecture

The international collective Forensic Architecture investigates cases of infringement of human rights, violence perpetrated by states and corporations, as well as deliberate degradation of the environment to which legal institutions have failed to react properly. The film shown in the exhibition presents the results of the group’s investigation into the murder of Halit Yozgat, who was killed in 2006 at an internet café run by his family in Kassel. It was one of a series of murders of immigrants living in Germany committed by members of the neo-Nazi organization National Socialist Underground (Nationalsozialistischer Untergrund). The group had been on the radar of the German police, but that did not prevent it from continuing its criminal activity undisturbed for more than a decade. In their investigation, Forensic Architecture carried out a detailed analysis of the testimony of secret service officer Andreas Temme, who was in one of the café’s rooms at the time of Yozgat’s murder.

Forensic Architecture (established in 2011) – interdisciplinary research agency established at Goldsmiths, University of London, in 2011. The team comprises specialists in various fields: architecture, art, law, film, forensic journalism, and programming. Conducting research projects and analyses, the collective seeks to collect and reveal evidence that may be used in investigations and lawsuits pursued by human rights organizations, ecologists, the media, investigative commissions, and the UN. The group taps into a variety of methods: photography, film, interviews, aural investigations, 3D models and animations, reconstructions and data analysis, which serve to recreate and analyse the spaces and circumstances of particular events. The effects of the collective’s activities, which adopt the form of films, lectures, workshops and reports, are presented in court and at art institutions. In 2018, Forensic Architecture received a nomination for the prestigious Turner Prize.