10/03/2026
We recently designed and produced a new exhibition for named ‘No Place for Traitors’.
In May 1945, after the liberation from N**i occupation, Dutch society sought to purge collaborators and N**i ideology, while attempting to prevent acts of revenge against ‘traitors’. Suddenly, large numbers of suspects were detained in former concentration camps, and former prisoners were liberated. Yet conditions inside the camps had hardly changed, causing the lines between right and wrong to blur.
This inversion between ‘captive and free’ served as the core concept for the exhibition design. Both prisoners and their guards are portrayed as blurred, life-size figures placed on large opaque panels, allowing visitors to roam between inside and outside, captive and free. The effect created through the chosen materials allows visitors to become a blurred silhouette in the story as well, constantly switching perspective between victim and perpetrator.
14 selected stories pose a direct question, such as “Should love be punishable?” or “Is it justified to use abuse during war to prevent worse?” These dilemmas form the basis of the game “Over the Line,” designed for individuals or groups to play within the exhibition. Through these topics the emotional and often confusing postwar situation in the camp comes to life. Together they pose ethical questions which demonstrate how difficult it is to restore the rule of law as it clashes with the societal call for revenge.
The exhibition is a new and fresh insight into an often overlooked complex historical period, and serves as a warning sign in our own times where these same institution and rule of law are under more and more pressure.
View the full casestudy on our website!
