The UCL Gender and Feminism Research Network are pleased to welcome Carey Young to discuss her Palais de Justice project. With discussant Dr Larne Abse Gogarty, UCL Slade School of Fine Art.

Palais de Justice was filmed surreptitiously at the Palais de Justice in Brussels, an enormous and ornate 19th century courthouse designed to depict law in terms of the sublime. Contradicting the familiar patriarchal culture of law, Young’s camera depicts female judges and lawyers at court. Sitting at trial, directing proceedings or delivering judgments, female judges are seen through a series of circular windows in courtroom doors. Always shooting without permission, Young subtly builds a counter-narrative: a legal system seemingly centered on, and perhaps controlled by women, as if male presence may be optional or unnecessary in this particular future.

Carey Young

Associate Professor at UCL Slade School of Fine Art

Carey Young’s artistic work employs a variety of media, including video, installation, photography, text and performance, and is often concerned with the relationships between the body, language, rhetoric and systems of power. Using a variety of media including video, photography, installation and performance, many of her works have addressed the ‘corporate takeover’ of individual subjectivity and the public domain.