Evening Lecture: 'Move, see, listen, imagine international law (or not)' - Dr Sofia Stolk, Asser Institute in The Hague, University of Amsterdam

This lecture is is part of the Art, Architecture and International Law seminar series which is being launched this academic year. The series is designed to bridge the worlds of art, architecture and international law. It explores the different ways in which art and architecture and international law intersect. It also demonstrates that international law exists well beyond the written word.

Lecture summary: In this talk I am inviting you on a sightseeing tour in The Hague, the ‘International City of Peace and Justice’. But it is not a tour from A to B and back. It is a tour in the form of a collage, assembled from artworks, texts, and objects from or about institutions of international law. Through a cacophony of shifting perspectives and modalities, I try to (un)make sense of international institutional sites as a spaces of encounter and exclusion.

Dr Sofia Stolk is a researcher in international law at the Asser Institute in The Hague and the University of Amsterdam. Her research project 'Imagining Justice' focuses on the use of visual means by international courts and tribunals and explores how different audiences engage with international law through its representation in visual media. She has published about the intersection of international law and art, architecture, theater, and film. Her monograph ‘The Opening Statement of the Prosecution in International Criminal Trials: A Solemn Tale of Horror’ was published by Routledge in 2021. Sofia coordinates the Camera Justitia programme on law and social justice at the annual Movies that Matter Festival is co-founder of the Legal Sightseeing platform (www.legalsightseeing.org) together with Dr. Renske Vos (VU Amsterdam).