Images are central to justice. They expose violence, mobilise publics, and serve as evidence in courts. But what images show – and conceal – depend on design of image technologies as well as camera and visual literacy skills. Therefore, this project investigates what goes into the making of images for legal and social justice before they are taken or seen.
The project moves beyond the situations around the taking and showing of images to investigate processes of designing image technologies and developing camera and visual literacy skills – what the project terms ‘before the image’. That is, the project proposes a fundamental rethinking of the places, people, and times considered part of image-making.
The project is carried out in close collaboration with civil society organisation, Pax Memoria. The field of images for justice is rapidly developing. Through close collaboration with leading civil society actors, the project connects people with practical, technical, and theoretical knowledge to produce shared, relevant, and engaged theorising on the potential of images to serve justice.
Contact Rose Bach on practical issues.
Image-capturing devices are in our hands and pockets, attached to buildings, vehicles, and bodies, and above us in the sky. They document violence, war crimes, and human rights abuses in images that are used in trials and for social justice. Despite their promise of truth, images are also recognised as biased, partial, and positioned. However, this has mainly been explored by studying images – or people engaged with taking or viewing them. To understand images for legal and social justice, we must study how biases, partialities, and positionalities of images are produced, not only in relation to taking and viewing images, but also in processes of designing image technologies and developing camera and visual literacy skills – what this project terms before the image. The project works ethnographically, cross-disciplinarily, and collaboratively. It subcontracts civil society actors to explore what goes into the making of images for legal and social justice before they are taken or seen.
The objectives are to:
The project is carried out in close collaboration with Pax Memoria. Pax Memoria works to enhance media integrity, rehumanize digital memories on environmental catastrophes in conflict zones, build capacity in media reporting, and support documentation and collective action for climate justice and accountability.
The overall research question for the project is:
This is explored through four interconnected sub-questions that each correspond with a work package:
RQ1: What are the processes that go into the making of camera equipment, devices, software, and mobile applications, and who are the implicated actors?
RQ2: How do political, cultural, economic, and technical affordances, safety considerations, and camera literacy skills inform the ways in which images are taken?
RQ3: How do informational infrastructures affect various modes of processing and showing images across formats, and how are these infrastructures developed?
RQ4: How does visual literacy, including memory, perceptions of truth and training, impact ways in which images are seen, and how is visual literacy developed?
Working in close collaboration, PI Nina Grønlykke Mollerup will lead WP1, postdoc Azza El-Masri will lead WP2, postdoc Jeff Deutch will lead WP3 while a PhD candidate will lead WP4. Pax Memoria works across all four work packages.
Are you looking for an internship and interested in open-source investigations? Join the newly established Visual Justice Lab at the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies (ToRS), University of Copenhagen.
As an intern at the Visual Justice Lab, you will be introduced to open-source investigation methods through training sessions, supervision, and participation in real-world investigations on human rights violations, climate change, and events with geopolitical implications. These investigations are conducted in collaboration with civil society organisations. Both part-time and full-time internships are possible.
The Visual Justice Lab is the first initiative of its kind in Denmark and represents the newest addition to a growing network of open source investigations labs dedicated to analyzing open-source data and other digital traces. Open source methods are becoming increasingly important in a world where documentation of war, conflict, and environmental destruction is increasingly accessible.
The Visual Justice Lab grows out of the ERC-funded research project Before the Image, which explores how images can be used to pursue justice. The lab is also supported by the UCPH Geopolitics Seed Money Initiative.
Please send a selected CV and a motivation letter answering the questions (maximum one page):
Send the application to Cathrine Norup at fpb614@ku.dk no later than 20 November 2026.
