Architectural and spatial analysis tools have been critical in a series of recent groundbreaking investigative journalism projects, enabling investigations to be carried out that would not have been possible in the past.

These projects have attracted a lot of attention within the architectural profession, but the working methods, challenges and opportunities of collaborations between architects and journalists are far less well understood. These two professions work in markedly different ways – visual vs textual – and have very different ideas about how rigorous knowledge can be produced. In journalism the gold standard is an eye witness who saw the incident unfold, while architecture might give more weight to visual and material evidence.

This exhibition explores these issues using our recent investigation into the network of detention camps built by the Chinese government in Xinjiang for the mass detention of Muslims. It was next to impossible for journalists to travel and work effectively in Xinjiang and the lack of access lead us to use methods such as satellite imagery, 3d modelling and analysis of the Chinese prison building regulations. In turn, this lead us to questions about how this information could meet journalistic standards, a question we resolved through corroboration of satellite imagery through other means and through communicating clearly to readers about our level of certainty that each site was a detention camp.

In 2021, Alison Killing, Megha Rajagopalan and Christo Buschek were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting for this project.

Since late 2016 it is estimated that over 1 million Muslim minorities have been imprisoned in a secretive network of detention camps and prisons in Xinjiang, China. This is part of a campaign of state surveillance, abuse, imprisonment and religious suppression that governments, experts and human rights groups have described as a genocide.

The Uyghurs are the largest group of people affected, but the crackdown also targets Kazakhs, Uzbeks, Kyrgyz, Hui, Mongols, Xibe and other indigenous people in the region. The Chinese government claimed that the camps were part of a benign programme of education designed to combat ‘extremism.’ In practice, people have been detained, sometimes for years, for religious expression and any behaviour perceived to be disloyal, such as downloading WhatsApp, growing a beard or for having studied abroad. Many people describe being taken away in the middle of the night, hooded and in chains, to terrifying prisons in unfamiliar locations.

In 2018, when this investigation began, it was believed there were 1 million people detained and 1,200 camps in existence, while only a few dozen had been found. Little was known about the camp network, or the locations to where the missing people had been ‘disappeared’. This installation explores how a journalist, architect and software developer worked together to find out. In 2021, their investigation was awarded with the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.

This installation explores these issues using a recent investigation – by Alison Killing (architect), Megha Rajagopalan (journalist) and Christo Buschek (software developer) — into the network of detention camps built by the Chinese government in Xinjiang for the mass detention of Muslims. In 2021, their investigation was awarded with the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting.

This exhibition is based on the series ‘Built to Last’ by Megha Rajagopalan, Alison Killing and Christo Buschek, for BuzzFeed News.

Exhibition: Alison Killing, Shumi Bose, Ekaterina Anchevskaya, Jan Rothuizen, Zachary Sigelko and Anna Moreno.

Supported by the Creative Industries Fund NL.