Palace of Justice

In Palace of Justice, judges, lawyers, defendants, ushers, clerks, and cleaning staff pass by, played by two versatile actors. They zoom in on the judiciary in all its ambiguity. 

The justice system is frequently criticized for its cumbersome, sometimes unjust, character. At the same time, it is under increasing pressure. Today, policy proposals from far-right parties are eroding national constitutions and international rules, resulting in the erosion of all sorts of civil rights. On the other hand, the call is being made, by among others author and historian Timothy Snyder: "Institutions do not protect themselves". 

Caring for the legal system is the central theme of this visual performance, which draws inspiration from one of the most mysterious pieces of Belgian heritage: the labyrinthine Palace of Justice in Brussels. Sébastien Hendrickx contrasts the building's grandeur with the slow and unspectacular labour required to maintain a legal system: the daily cleaning, compiling court files, transporting them, archiving them, sifting through them in preparation for a trial, rehearsing a plea... 

For decades, the Palace of Justice was neglected. Most Belgians have never seen the building without its scaffolding – scaffolding that at one point even required its own renovation. The building seems both a palace and a ruin: a metaphor for both institutional power and extreme vulnerability. 

Sébastien Hendrickx is a theatre maker, dramaturge, art critic, pedagogue, and activist. His practice revolves around performance, ecology, and social change – in ways that can inform, complement, and contradict each other. He studied theatre studies at University of Ghent (2001–2004) and multimedia arts at LUCA School of Arts (2004–2007). As a dramaturge, he has worked for KVS, Toneelhuis, and NTGent, and on projects by Benjamin Verdonck, Jozef Wouters, Thomas Bellinck, Heike Langsdorf, Ula Sickle, Ezra Veldhuis & Bosse Provoost, Luanda Casella, and Alexander Vantournhout, among others. His debut performance The Good Life (2021) is a compelling journey that reinterprets the good life in the light of environmental pollution. The storytelling performance Moddertong (2022–2024) evokes the daily life of a community affected by a heatwave.