In the 17th century, the Deptford Dockyard was used by commercial ship-builders who serviced clients including the East India Company, tying the dockyard historically to both British imperialism and early mechanisms of global finance.

At the same time, designs for the first prison panopticon were pre-dated in Deptford by Samuel Bentham (brother of Jeremy Bentham) whose own earlier blueprint for a school for ship artisans indicated ideas of dock and ship construction as supporting early technologies of class (and caste) striation, surveillance and micropolitical control central to British colonialism.

How have these overlapping architectures of finance and carcerality shaped the experiences of diasporic communities living in the legacy of British colonialism today? Artist Niharika Pore, media producer Inaya Hussain and members of the Rights Collective will think with archives from East India Company in 2024/25.