Photographer Sébastien Van Malleghem spent eight months researching Belgium’s prison system in a self-financed investigative report that began in 2011. He eventually gained access to ten different institutions, bringing into focus the ruined lives and misery of confinement, whether for criminal actions or psychological reasons. Rather than questioning the need to put away and monitor these individuals, through his stark and confronting black-and-white images Van Malleghem intends to condemn the archaic and opaque system around those men and women who have been incarcerated behind walls that only erode their humanity, whether under the pretence of crime or insanity.

Publisher Andre Frere Editions