Special Event: Release of Special Issue of World Records Journal, Just Evidence: May 8, 2025

 

On Thursday 8^th May, Goldsmiths MCCS and Visual Cultures are co-hosting an event to mark the release of a special issue of World Records Journal called Just Evidence.

 

Just Evidence @ Goldsmiths brings together scholars and practitioners from the fields of Cinema Studies, Cultural Studies, Political Theory, and Geography, to highlight particular cases and contexts in which targeted populations have located mechanisms of harm reductions within forensic authority, and through counterforensic practices. This special issue of World Records Journal interrogates how counterforensic practices offer provisional forms of protection that challenge and/or uphold the systems producing vulnerability, and it investigates strategies employed by artists and activists to navigate these double-binds.

 

Particular areas of focus include the forensic architecture investigation unit of Al-Haq, the oldest human rights organization in Palestine, the rise of the victims’ rights movement, and the cinematic practices of Languid Hands, Philip Scheffner, and Maxime Jean-Baptiste.

 

This event will take place at Goldsmiths in the RHB Cinema (Ground Floor, Richard Hoggart Building) from 2pm-4pm on Thursday 8^th May. It will feature a short introduction to the Just Evidence special issue by the editors (Sasha Crawford-Holland, Patrick Smith and LaCharles Ward), followed by reflections on three of its essays (see below) by Goldsmiths interlocutors. The remaining time will be reserved for free-flowing discussion and debate. 

 

Previews of the following three essays will be shared with registered participants ahead of the discussion:

 

They Are Shooting at Our Shadows The Al-Haq Forensic Architecture Investigative Unit and Rachel Nelson (Visualizing Abolition)

Laliv Melamed and Pooja Rangan

 

Countering Forensic Violence: Philip Scheffner’s Revision

Başak Ertür and Alisa Lebow

 

Tongueless Whispers and Recited Choreographies: Black Memory as Counterforensics

Yasmina Price

 

To register for the event, please RSVP via the Eventbrite page here.