In D.C.M. Hoogstraeten (2025), Max Verheijen examines the internal economy of Gelmelslot Castle in Hoogstraten, a building that has occupied a dominant position in the landscape and history of the city for centuries. Originally a feudal castle and later transformed into a beggars' institution, agricultural colony, and penitentiary school center in the 19th century, the complex continues to function as a tightly regulated space of order and control. Within this institutional setting, an internal currency was introduced, which circulated exclusively within the building. Outside the walls, this currency had no value, creating a closed microcosm of economic relations.

In his work, Verheijen extracts and visualizes these coins, revealing their reduction to fragments of assigned value. In doing so, he shows that money is not inherent but arises in social relations, as David Graeber argues, and how capitalist systems depend on external resources, as Rosa Luxemburg demonstrates. The internal currency of the Gelmelslot embodies the tension between internal and external values, between confinement and externality: a system in which circulation was completely regulated and in which power, visibility, and access were intrinsically linked.

With his focus on the coins, Verheijen exposes the intimate, almost invisible transactions that took place within a closed vacuum. The coins function as a structuring element: they not only mark internal value, but also construct, as it were, the walls and boundaries of the Gelmelslot, allowing the building to retain its own internal logic and closed nature. At the same time, the coins serve as a metaphor for subversion: they represent alternative, social, and solidarity-based forms of exchange within a system that is completely separated from the outside world. Using photography and video, Verheijen places these fragments in an installation context, thereby revealing both the historical time and the paradox of the Gelmelslot, a vacuum that creates internal order while activating its own boundaries.

The work consists of four prints measuring 60 × 51 centimeters.