“For a Justice to Come”, June 2025

The international response to the unfolding genocide in Gaza makes clear that there is a crisis in the notion of justice. A consensus among European countries forged in the wake of the Second World War governing war crimes has dissipated. Or, it might be more accurate to write that contradictions inherent in that fragile agreement about the universality of access to justice have been freshly revealed. This dissipation is not isolated: the rise of the extreme right-wing in places like India, Brazil, the United States, and throughout Europe marks a decisive shift not only in the political landscape, but in the structures that shape society’s collective imagination about the very nature of the term, justice.  

“For a Justice to Come” is a summer school centered on the implications of this shift for artists, curators, designers, and others whose work engages with the aesthetics of imagination. It is grounded in the work of French philosopher Jacques Derrida, who argued that justice must remain an idea that haunts and decenters the institutions that claim to arbitrate it. Organized by the Center for Art the Political Imaginary, it will take place every other year beginning in 2025.  

The inaugural summer school (June 2025) will be held in Marseille, which was a key transit point for those fleeing European fascism during the second World War. One of its most famous passers-through was Walter Benjamin, who left from Marseille for Spain overland before taking his own life in Port Bou. The school would meet in Marseille, travel in Benjamin’s footsteps, then return to Marseille to continue its curriculum. The location and journey are significant because Derrida defines his notion of justice-to-come against Benjamin’s understanding of justice. In addition to reading both philosophers, the school will take in the monument to Benjamin located just across the Spanish border and include both practice- and text-based seminars and workshops.   

Four mandatory on-line sessions in April and May will set out the philosophical confrontation between Walter Benjamin and Derrida. These sessions allow for participants to take a role in shaping parts of the curriculum in June, as well as forge a common set of references to work both with and against during the summer intensive. 

In June, the Summer School will be structured by four practice-oriented nodes: one defined by CAPIm’s 2025 visiting Senior Researcher Liv Bugge in line with her artistic practice; another examining the question of from where/whom justice to come might be claimed in conjunction with a visit to 3 bis f; a third devoted to Valentina Desideri and Denise Ferreira da Silva’s practice of ‘Poethical Reading’; and a final node will be dedicated to the journey to Port Bou in Walter Benjamin’s footsteps.