Design Map · Eindhoven
A State of Tolerance and Tolerable States
Graduation project by Justin Ackerschott at Design Academy Eindhoven, 2026. Shown during Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven on Design Map, location F5.
‘A State of Tolerance and Tolerable States’ investigates how cultural and structural violence is embedded within the ordinary spaces of migration governance in Germany. Drawing on research into the former SS barracks in Nuremberg, now the headquarters of Germany’s Federal Office for Migration and Refugees, the project examines how contemporary administrative systems remain entangled with longer histories of exclusion.
Developed through conversations with migrants, refugees and social workers, alongside archival and site-based research, it traces forms of violence that often remain obscured because they unfold through procedures, infrastructures and everyday routines rather than spectacular events. The scenographic installation reconfigures suspended ceiling panels, carpet tiles and ventilation towers into a rearranged administrative environment. Within it, a video juxtaposes everyday bureaucratic gestures with migrants’ testimonies that reveal the underlying violent and administrative processes, while field recordings and documented moments of silence following racist acts create a layered soundscape.