Brunilda Pali

[Music]

chances are high that you know this lady

Lady Justice is the main image
of justice we have

A blindfolded woman
with scales and a sword

She is blindfolded because she has
decided not to see

whom she has in front of her.

With her scales it's nice to measure
pain crime and fit that to punishment.

With her sword she delivers
her punishment,

monopolizing its violence.

Is this adjust image?

how can we think about justice
through images?

these are the questions
I will ask here today.

As a woman the accessories of Lady Justice

suffocate me. That might be because I'm

not a lady. Maybe it's because I'm not

dressed to kill. In my talk today my

companions will be women real women let

us consider for a moment the blindfold.

If justice was really blind as she

claims to be then my question: is why our

prisons filled mostly with blacks

foreigners in the poorest among us?

I think she is blind in order not to see

the injustices imposed in her name. Not

to see the pain and meaninglessness

created by ugly institutions, our prisons.

Deep down a woman in fact, this lady

cannot bear to see. When trying to do

justice when claiming to do justice our

eyes must be open wide. The men and women

in our hands are not abstract but real

human beings. They have been babies with

a crystal face playful children and have

grown up men and women among us. They are

called Emily, Antonio,

Philip. Brunella. In 1931 a woman called

Margaret Wilson on her own initiative

curiosity and interest and also concern

writes a book called "The crime of

punishment". She was not an expert she is

just a woman. She writes this about her

book she says : "This is a woman's book and

therefore we shall be is shamelessly

women as we please and that means we

shall not consider the law or justice or

safety or any other abstraction at a

distance from the meaning they have on

the lives of men and women, boys and

girls we love." Lady Justice especially

proud of her scales we are obsessed with

the scales but our obsession is

presumptuous. A very simple tool of crime

and punishment in time and space shows

how ridiculous our assumptions are. The

same crime today, it's not even taken

very seriously,

yesterday it was punished with death

penalty. I'm talking about things like

killing chicken, cutting trees, stealing

horses, being a witch, being a witch today

is even fashionable. The same crime such

as drug use in Norway is punished with a

fine in Singapore with death penalty. We

try for accuracy and precision but

cannot find it. In fact geometrical rigor

and human activity do not go together

well. The algebra of suffering, writes

Anna Messuti, in her book "Time as

punishment", is : minus times minus equals

more. Negative times negative equals

positive. But do we really believe that

in order to get rid of

suffering we need to add additional

suffering? The sword of justice delivers

punishment but does not keep a distance

from it. For this reason the history of

punishment is not less cruel that the

history of crime. So is this a just image?

How can we think about alternative ideas

of justice through images? Since 10 years

I work on an alternative idea of justice

called restorative justice. Restorative

justice challenges Lady Justice in all

its elements: blindfold, scales and sword.

Its eyes and ears are open wide to

listen to and see the voices and faces

of those that have been harmed and those

that have harmed. It does not have the

arrogance to think we can measure pain

and equate it to punishment. It deals

with the irreversibility of human action:

what has been done cannot be undone.

There is no equality of pain. Crime and

punishment are not interchangeable. We

must move on from this. Restorative

justice tries to do right from

wrong. It keeps crime at a distance says

Claudia Mazzucato.

It can meet violence but does not

replicate it, does not use it and

therefore does not legitimize it.

Answering evil with evil might seem the

most obvious but it is not the best way

to establish an equilibrium.

Claudia Mazzucato is one of the

mediators that has created very

important encounters between

perpetrators of political violence in

1970s in Italy and their victims. The

best argument against violence she

argues is a critique of violence.

The sword of justice cuts between victims

and offenders innocent and guilty,

partisans of one and the other, relevant

from irrelevant fact. As a mediator

Mazzucato likens her word to another

image that of the plough it is in the

nature of the plough to work for many

years it is in the nature of the sword

to work but one minute it takes years

and years to nourish and maintain human

lives and human relations but is the

plough a good image of restorative

justice claudia matsukata herself finds

anchorage in another image this is a

logo of the Constitutional Court in

South Africa it was made by a woman

artist called Carolyn Perron this image

you see in this image you see people

sheltered under the branches of the tree

to symbolize a justice that protects it

is bait based on traditional African

communities where people were literally

sitting under a tree to discuss their

disputes and conflict through dialogue

the image also tries to represent

another concept the concept of Ubuntu

this concept refers to humanity but

humanity made possible only through the

existence of other people in fact in the

images you will notice that dark and

light are distinct the the branches and

the people in a way artistic black black

and white but on another level you will

see that they are not distinct you do

not see where does one start and where

does the other end in my work in

restorative justice I have been very

inspired by scholars like Claudia

matsukata but also others who feel the

need to step outside their narrow field

these scholars find anchorage in arts

and literature I think in our field we

need contamination we need to step

outside otherwise we remain a closed

system this image was made by street

artist here in lovin and it refers very

clearly to what I think a closed system

is listening to oneself only speaking to

oneself only if we ignore arts and

imagination we lack the tools that will

give us the necessary inspiration to

understand what do we do why do we do it

and how can we imagine things being

otherwise but our brains are not

instruments of representation they are

instrument of action this is the reason

why I'm very conscious of the importance

of action and therefore I do like art

that acts that moves that touches that

represents and shows another image of

what is possible I want to talk to you

about another woman this our Dean Ian

artist Mary Ally she died four years ago

at 98 93 years old I was very lucky to

meet her two years before she died in an

Italian in Sardinia in 1981 Maria led me

the truly unique piece of art in her

hometown in ullas I for her art work she

started talking to the people in town

listening to their stories among the old

stories told one story caught her

imagination The Legend of the blue

ribbon the legend told of a little girl

who was in a cave with two older men and

the cave falls down the girl holds on to

a blue ribbon she sees in the sky and

gets saved the men do not believe her

and die under the cave now the legend is

built on a real event that took place in

olice I where when the mountain that

stands on top of the town fell down and

caused a tragedy it was this legend and

the imagination of the little girl that

gave the artist the right tools to start

her project merchants from

all over Italy donated meters and meters

of blue fabric she asked the inhabitants

to cut long blue ribbons out of the

fabric of course some just watched

because some people were very hesitant

to to participate and but most people

did especially children did once the

blue ribbons were ready she asked the

inhabitants to tie the town into itself

tie every house to each other as people

started to do this a problem emerged

people were telling her they did not

want to tie the house to the house of

the neighbor because there were enemies

the artists worked with this resistance

and ask people to tie the houses anyhow

but when there was friendship and to tie

loaves of bread into the nodes or put

colorful clothes to symbolize it also

reminding us that friendship is rare and

she told them to put nothing where there

was no friendship now as the houses were

being tied into each other a helicopter

flew in float flew in and tied the whole

town to its mountain in order to make

peace with it now I know this image

belongs to an art museum and not to a

courthouse I also know that it's very

impractical to tie our courthouses with

blue ribbons but I want this image to

make us think think of what justice that

restores and repairs would look like I

think time has come for Lady Justice to

grow up and become a woman a 93 years

old woman is this how can how can we

think about just images probably we have

to think a little bit further about that

but let me leave you with one thing

tonight

when you go home

tonight tomorrow please look and think

about images of justice when you go into

a courthouse bow in respect in front of

the statue of Lady Justice

but look further for alternatives I hope

our courthouses

and our municipalities will lounge

public forums inviting artists students

and others to work together and imagine

a justice otherwise and if it can be

imagined it can be done

thank you

[Applause]