I.106 Chemical Fire at Marathon Refinery
Date of Incident
24 Aug 2023 - 28 Aug 2023
Location
Garyville, Louisiana, USA
Forums
Media, Web Platform
In Partnership With
The Guardian, Earthjustice, Healthy Gulf, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, The Descendants Project, Boundless Community Action
When a leaking petrochemical tank at the Marathon Petroleum refinery in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ caught fire, it produced a thick plume of toxic smoke that spread for miles over neighbouring communities. Authorities claimed that nearby residents were unaffected, even as reports of severe health impacts emerged. Fearing a cover-up, some of those residents asked FA to investigate.
I.105 German Colonial Genocide in Namibia: Shark Island
Date of Incident
1905 - 1908
Location
Lüderitz, ǃNamiǂNûs, ǁKharas region, Namibia
Forums
Exhibition, Human Rights Report, Media
In Partnership With
Ovaherero Traditional Authority (OTA), Nama Traditional Leaders Association (NTLA)
During their genocidal campaign against the Ovaherero and Nama between 1904 and 1908, German colonial troops established five concentration camps across German Southwest Africa. Shark Island, also known as ‘Death Island’, was the most notorious. FA and Forensis worked with descendants of the camp’s victims and survivors to reconstruct this space of trauma, which today faces new threats of erasure.
I.102 German Colonial Genocide in Namibia: The Hornkranz Massacre
Date of Incident
12 April 1893
Location
Hornkranz, Khomas Region, Namibia
Forums
Exhibition, Human Rights Report, Media
In Partnership With
Nama Traditional Leaders Association (NTLA), Ovaherero Traditional Authority (OTA), Forensis
On 12 April 1893, German troops attacked the Nama settlement of ||Nâ‡gâs, also known as Hornkranz, located in present-day Namibia. This was the little-known first chapter in a genocidal campaign against the Nama and Ovaherero that culminated between 1904 and 1908. We worked with descendants to reconstruct the lost settlement and support Nama claims for access to and preservation of the site.
I.94 Executions and Mass Graves in Tantura, 23 May 1948
Date of Incident
22 May 1948
Location
Tantura, Palestine
Forums
Legal Process, Media
Commissioned By
Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights
Our investigation reveals new evidence about massacres conducted in the Palestinian village of Tantura by Israeli forces after its occupation on 22-23 May 1948 and subsequent depopulation. Launched on the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, it brings together testimonies and photographic evidence to locate several mass graves in which the victims were buried—including one previously unidentified.
I.93 The Nebelivka Hypothesis
Date of Incident
3500 BC - Ongoing
Location
Nebelivka, Ukraine
Forums
Exhibition
In Partnership With
David Wengrow
In partnership with David Wengrow, this project combines archaeological science with the tools of Forensic Architecture to examine the 6,000-year-old remains of the city of Nebelivka. By reading the soil as an archaeological artefact in its own right, a lost tradition of urban life is unearthed, offering a lens through which to interrogate core assumptions about urban space, power, and ecology.
I.88 Restituting Evidence: Genocide and Reparations in German Colonial Namibia
Date of Incident
1904 - 1908
Location
Otjozondjupa, Omaheke, and Khomas, Namibia
Forums
Media
In Partnership With
The Ovaherero/Ovambanderu Genocide Foundation (OGF), Forensis
From 1904–1908, Germany committed genocide against the Herero, Mbanderu and Nama peoples in their colony of ‘South-West Africa’ (present-day Namibia). FA/Forensis partnered with genocide activists from descendant communities to begin to produce a body of digital evidence that can be leveraged in support of demands for land restitution and reparations.
I.86 The Raid on Al-Haq's Offices: 18 August 2022
Date of Incident
18 Aug 2022
Location
Ramallah, Palestine
Forums
Legal Process, Media
In Partnership With
Al-Haq
On 18 August 2022, Israeli occupation forces raided the offices of Al-Haq alongside six other Palestinian human rights groups. Working with Al-Haq's new Forensic Architecture Investigation Unit, we analysed available CCTV footage to determine the circumstances of the raid and expose Israeli apartheid practices against civil society organisations.
I.84 Drift-backs in the Aegean Sea
Date of Incident
March 2020 - Ongoing
Location
Aegean Sea
Forums
Legal Process, Human Rights Report, Media, Parliamentary Inquiry, Web Platform
In Partnership With
Forensis
Asylum seekers crossing the Aegean Sea are intercepted within Greek waters or arrested after they arrive on Greek shores, beaten, stripped of their possessions, and then forcefully loaded onto life rafts and left to drift back to the Turkish coast. FA/Forensis verified and mapped evidence for over 2000 such ‘drift-backs’, demonstrating the scale of this violent and illegal border defence practice.
I.81 Racist Terror Attack in Hanau: The Police Operation
Date of Incident
19 Feb 2020
Location
Hanau, Germany
Forums
Exhibition, Media, Parliamentary Inquiry
Commissioned By
Initiative 19. Februar
On 19 February 2020, nine people were murdered in a racist terror attack in Hanau, Germany. After the attack, the perpetrator went to his house, where he killed his mother, and himself. Police knew the perpetrator’s address early on but did not storm the house for almost five hours. We were asked by the victims’ families and the Initiative 19. Februar to examine how the police operation unfolded.
I.80 The Shelling of Khudair Warehouse: Chemical Warfare by Indirect Means
Date of Incident
15 May 2021
Location
Gaza, Palestine
Forums
Legal Process, Media
In Partnership With
Al-Haq
Marking the launch of Al-Haq’s Forensic Architecture Investigation Unit based in Ramallah, we examined the circumstances of the 15 May 2021 Israeli bombing of the Khudair Pharmaceuticals and Agricultural Tools Company in Beit Lahiya—the largest agricultural chemical warehouse in Gaza—as part of the environmental disaster imposed on Palestinians.
I.79 Living Archaeology in Gaza
Date of Incident
7th Century BCE - Ongoing
Location
Gaza
Forums
Legal Process, United Nations, Human Rights Report, Media
Commissioned By
Self-Initiated
Decades of bombings and humanitarian disaster inflicted by the Israeli occupation have posed a constant threat not only to Palestinian lives but also to their cultural heritage. FA has conducted the first open-source excavation of this remarkable archaeological site along Gaza’s coastline, illustrating the myriad risks it faces.
I.78 Pushbacks Across the Evros/Meriç River: The Case of Parvin
Date of Incident
1 Feb 2020
Location
Evros/Meriç river, Greek-Turkish border
Forums
Legal Process, United Nations, Human Rights Report, Media
Commissioned By
European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR)
At Europe’s southeastern river border, migrants report being beaten, detained, and illegally ‘pushed back’ to Turkey from Greece by unidentified masked men. Greek and EU authorities refuse to investigate. We worked with Parvin, a young woman from Iran, to analyse evidence she had gathered during her crossings and reconstruct her journey and experiences of ‘pushback’.
I.76 Dispossession and The Memory of the Earth: Land Dispossession in Nueva Colonia
Date of Incident
1960s to the present day
Location
Nueva Colonia, Urabá Antioqueño, Colombia
Forums
Legal Process, Exhibition, Human Rights Report, Truth Commission, Web Platform
Commissioned By
The Commission for the Clarification of Truth, Coexistence and Non-Repetition of Colombia
This investigation shows how the dispossession of campesino farmers in the Urabá Antioqueño region of Nueva Colonia was achieved by a combination of physical violence, environmental transformations and legal means.
I.74 The Murder of Lucas Villa
Date of Incident
5 May 2021
Location
Pereira, Colombia
Forums
Media
In Partnership With
Bellingcat, Cerosetenta, Baudo Agencia Pública
On the 5th of May 2021, Lucas Villa, a Colombian student, was shot and fatally wounded in Pereira, Colombia while participating in the National Strike. Our findings suggest Lucas was targeted in a coordinated assassination.
I.62 Pushbacks Across the Evros/Meriç River: Situated Testimony
Date of Incident
1 Oct 2016
Location
Evros/Meriç river, Greek-Turkish border
Forums
Legal Process, Human Rights Report, Media
In Partnership With
HumanRights360
At Europe’s southeastern river border, migrants report being beaten, detained, and illegally ‘pushed back’ to Turkey from Greece by unidentified masked men. Greek and EU authorities refuse to investigate. We used architectural and gaming software to gather evidence that proves the practice is widespread and systematic.
I.45 Herbicidal Warfare in Gaza
Date of Incident
1 Jan 2014 - Ongoing
Location
Khan Younes, Gaza, Occupied Palestinian Territories
Forums
Exhibition, Media
Commissioned By
Self-Initiated
Since 2014, Israeli military bulldozing of agricultural and residential lands along the eastern border of occupied Gaza has been complemented by unannounced aerial spraying of crop-killing herbicides. Piecing together farmer testimonies, satellite imagery, and drift analysis, we investigated the unique destructive signature of a single spraying event in April 2017, along the border in Khan Younes.
I.35 The Destruction of Yazidi Cultural Heritage
Date of Incident
3 Aug 2014 - 13 Nov 2015
Location
Sinjar, Iraq
Forums
Legal Process, Citizens' Tribunal, Exhibition, Web Platform
In Partnership With
Yazda: Global Yazidi Organization
In August 2014, ISIL invaded the Sinjar, northern Iraq, home of the Yazidi religious minority. Thousands were enslaved, executed or displaced, and religious buildings were torn down.
We trained Yazda researchers in our techniques, and worked together to document the physical traces of genocide.
I.26 Destruction and Return in al-Araqib
Date of Incident
1 Jan 2010 - Ongoing
Location
al-Araqib, Negev/Naqab desert
Forums
Legal Process, Exhibition
Commissioned By
The Village of al-Araqib
The Bedouin village of al-Araqib has been demolished over 120 times since 1954. Every time, the villagers return.
Using aerial imagery and archaeological surveys, and in collaboration of local families, we provided evidence of ongoing inhabitation, against their dispossession by the Israeli state
Ground Truth⤵
‘Ground truth’ describes the technique of anchoring the results of a computational or digital process—such as photogrammetry or satellite image analysis—to a precise location in the real world.
This is done by comparing measurable data on the ground, such as the GPS coordinates of a specific, recognisable landmark, to the contents of that digital process. ‘Ground truthing’ a digital model helps us to connect the results of our technical analysis to conditions in the real world.