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Violent Legalities

Violent Legalities is an interdisciplinary project that brings together a team of architectural researchers and web developers based in New Zealand and offshore. Building on open-source software developed by London-based human rights agency Forensic Architecture, the exhibition launches new interactive maps of Aotearoa, specially developed to plot historical instances of violence and unrest and to track these against a chronology of legislative changes. This ambitious project draws on hundreds of documents and sources, including the Waitangi Tribunal, and is initiated in the wake of the 2019 Christchurch mosque shootings. The exhibition trials this software as a potential tool in scrutinising such law changes. It presents a case, based on the group’s initial findings, that certain changes in legislation have led to the over-policing of non-Pākehā and the under-policing of white supremacist groups.

LOCATION 

Te Pātaka Toi Adam Art Gallery Wellington

YEAR

2020

CONTRIBUTORS

Project Coordinator: Karamia Müller

Software Development: Lachlan Kermode

Research: Fraser Crichton, Bhaveeka Madagammana

Video Editing and Design: Mariachiara Ficarelli

Animation: Davide Mangano

Project review: https://architecturenow.co.nz/articles/review-violent-legalities/

Project information: https://architecturenow.co.nz/articles/violent-legalities-in-conversation-with-karamia-muller-and-sarosh-mulla/

Funding: The University of Auckland

Photography: Ted Whitaker