Hybrid Lecture Series "Bodies of Law: Art, Activism, and the Right to Have a Body".

The human body lies at the heart of many urgent contemporary legal debates and social justice movements. Examples include the struggle for reproductive rights, sexual self-determination and the right to abortion, as well as body-based strategies in the realms of migration politics and contemporary warfare, including push-backs and human shielding. Legal frameworks also determine the extent to which bodies can intervene in public spaces, hold protests and assemblies, and access material, physical, and ethical protections. The integrity and the inalienability of the body are fundamental legal principles that should be applicable to everyone. However, factors such as race, gender and ability challenge these principles–in other words, not all bodies are granted equal status and agency under the law.
By taking a transdisciplinary approach, Bodies of Law addresses these and other phenomena as occasions to question how the law perceives and deals with the human body, and who is legally afforded the right to have a body. Drawing on a range of case studies, concepts and practices from law, civic engagement, the arts and activism, this international lecture series explores how body-based knowledge can reveal the ambiguities and loopholes of legal structures.
Bodies of Law explores the body’s role in legal matters. Is the body the object of law, its agent, a surface for projection, a witness or an archive, and in what ways do we imagine, represent, stage and frame our own and others’ bodies in relation to the law? In what ways can the body be understood as evidence for testing, negotiating and challenging different notions of 'truth'? To what extent is a body’s ability to appear in its own right in front of the law a matter of aesthetics and how a body performs, as well as how it is perceived? How can art facilitate the exploration of alternative models of justice?

All sessions are held in English, take place live on Thursdays, 6pm – 8pm, are livestreamed and free of charge.

Venue: HZT Campus Uferstudios, Studio 11, Uferstraße 23, 13357 Berlin

Detailed information on the individual sessions and guests as well as the link for the livestream will be available on www.hzt-berlin.de from October 5 onwards.

22 October 2026
Bodily Self-Determination
Carolina Mendonça & Laura Leogrande

29 October 2026
Bodily Ownership and Integrity
Lina Majdalanie & Esther Neuhann

5 November 2026
Counter-Forums and People’s Trials
Başak Ertür & Robin Vanbesien

12 November 2026
Border Justice, and Bodies as Evidence
Hanaa Hakiki & Arkadi Zaides

19 November 2026
Missing Bodies
James Martel & Janez Janša

26 November 2026
Collective Bodies and Civil Action
Nenad Lajbensperger & Nikolina Đorđević/Ansambl Generalštab

10 December 2026
Bodily Distinctability and the Racial Embrace
Phanuel Antwi & Sabrina Winter

17 December 2026
Disembodiment
Banu Bargu,
Lucia Ruprecht & Sandra Noeth

Bodies of Law is curated by Sandra Noeth, with the support of Nevena Delić. The sessions with Banu Bargu and Arkadi Zaides are presented in collaboration with Critical Dance Studies at the FU Berlin.