De Bureaucratische Escape Room

Merel Smitt received a grant for the development of The Bureaucratic Escape Room: an intense theatrical experience that immerses you in the frustrating reality of bureaucracy surrounding poverty. In this immersive installation, you and others navigate a maze of forms, letters, and systems based on true stories of people living in poverty. Through role play, tasks, and personal prompts, you experience from within how powerless and dehumanising the system can be. This escape room is not a game, but a confronting insight into the reality many face. Developed by Merel in collaboration with communities in Rotterdam and Manchester, the project invites you to reflect on your own role in the system, as a citizen, social worker, or policymaker.

Merel is an experience-artist from Rotterdam. She creates performances, installations, and interventions that take place in daily life and public space. Her work is rooted in social issues and emerges from long-term participatory research in collaboration with communities, organisations, and researchers. She develops projects in unconventional places where art is usually less visible, inviting audiences to actively engage with the systems and power structures that shape our daily lives. In her practice, she blurs the boundary between fiction and reality, prompting reflection, empathy, and change. Participants in her work are given the opportunity to experience themselves, others, and the world in new ways.