A Kafkaesque Stage at a Former Courthouse in Berlin

Inside the former courthouse at Lehrter Straße, Stacy Douglas presents Law Is Aesthetic: Trope, a four-part video installation that turns legal theory into theatre. Drawing from Franz Kafka’s The Trial, Douglas explores how the law accuses, convicts, and disciplines even when no crime has been named.

Kafkaesque Becomes Literal

The first video opens with individuals bewildered by unexpected accusations. The word “Kafkaesque” is thrown around by news anchors, yet no one seems to grasp what it means. In the second, a person combs through Canadian legal cases where the term is used as if it were a neutral descriptor. Douglas exposes how language in legal settings not only reflects but also produces absurdities.

Waiting, But For What?

In the third piece, Douglas stages a rehearsal of a one-act play titled Waiting for Law, inspired by Beckett. The characters are criminalized simply for waiting. If they wait, they are wrong. If they leave, they are wrong. The court exists, but its rules are incoherent. Viewers are drawn into the anxiety of indefinite expectation.

The final piece shifts tone. It features a series of love letters addressed to people, institutions, and ideas. These letters grapple with the possibility of “counter-monumentality”—a rejection of dominant legal and historical narratives in favor of personal and collective vulnerability. Here, Douglas creates space for emotional honesty within systems designed for control.

Scholar, Storyteller, Subversive

Born in Peterborough in 1981 and currently based in Ottawa, Douglas is Associate Professor in the Department of Law and Legal Studies at Carleton University. She is also the author of Curating Community (2017), a critical examination of how museums construct national belonging. Her work at the Biennale is not a departure from academia but an expansion of it. Through satire, repetition, and poetry, she confronts the very systems she studies.

Reclaiming the Courthouse

The Berlin Biennale, organized by KW Institute for Contemporary Art and supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, transforms the former courthouse into a space for critique. By placing her work inside a building once used to administer justice, Douglas turns the institution into her stage and the viewer into both witness and juror.

This is not simply an academic project displayed in an art gallery. It is a visceral invitation to consider how laws shape bodies, emotions, and public narratives. Douglas is not commenting on power from the sidelines. She is inside it, moving its parts, asking what it costs to live under its gaze.