Forensic Architecture - Witnesses

The fifth exhibition Louisiana's series The Architect’s Studio presented Forensic Architecture, an interdisciplinary research agency, based at Goldsmiths, University of London. Working in the intersection of architecture, law, journalism, human rights and the environment, Forensic Architecture investigates conflicts and crimes around the world.

The exhibition at Louisiana focused on Forensic Architecture’s work with witnesses and spatial constructions for introducing testimony and evidence. It was divided into three sections:

WITNESSES: Presenting the many different types of witnesses, clues and data at the core of Forensic Architecture’s work. Situated testimony, a large video work made especially for this exhibition, showed how various forms of testimony are documented and represented in architectural models.

MODES OF SENSING: Bearing traces of events, materials are witnesses, too. This section described the work of reading changes in material witnesses such as brick, leaves and smokes. Methods included 3D modelling, fieldwork, machine learning, and full-scale reconstructions.

ITINERANT WITNESSES: Witnesses documenting their experiences trying to cross borders in Europe provide another kind of site-specific testimony. Questions of migration and border policy were unpacked alongside direct eyewitness transmissions and Forensic Architecture’s mapping of migrant journeys.

Two full-scale reconstructions of crime scenes were built, one situated outside in the Sculpture Park.