AP: Lara Staal - De Gevangenis

Together with four ex-prisoners, Lara Staal, house artist at NTGent, makes a razor-sharp analysis of the failing prison system. Why do we stubbornly cling to a system that helps no one?

​

<div style="padding:56.25% 0 0 0;position:relative;"><iframe src="https://player.vimeo.com/video/1035154494?badge=0&amp;autopause=0&amp;player_id=0&amp;app_id=58479" frameborder="0" allow="autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:543px;" title="Teaser: De Gevangenis - Lara Staal / NTGent"></iframe></div><script src="https://player.vimeo.com/api/player.js"></script>

​

For years, Belgium has struggled with overcrowded and outdated prisons. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture has repeatedly warned our country. The European Court of Human Rights condemned Belgium in 2014. How come, when we have known for decades that the system is failing, we still stubbornly cling to it?

​

Together with director Lara Staal, four ex-convicts make a razor-sharp analysis of our prison system in DE GEVANGENIS THE PRISON]. After _[DISSIDENT, about Flemish education, and SERDI_, about youth care, Staal once again gives a voice to the victims of a failing system.

​

Prisons form a parallel universe. They are societies in miniature that exist alongside visible, ‘open’ societies. But to what extent are we, as citizens, aware of this? What is our collective vision? How do we think about ‘punishment’ these days? And which voices decide what happens?

​

Life in prison takes place in the shadows. Banishing people to an ‘underworld’ seems a way to keep the world ‘above’ clean and comfortable. But is this true? What is this violence that we don’t seem to see, upon which our society is built? Can people return from the underworld to the world above? And if they do, in what ways are they marked and changed forever? 

​