Framer Framed, AFIELD and Arts of the Working Class, launches the Transitional Justice with Artists Grant for European-based artists.
The Transitional Justice with Artists (TJA) programme supports Europe-based practitioners and the communities they serve who have endured severe human rights violations. It honours the lived experience of victims and survivors, recognising the complexity of their roles and upholding their dignity, while pursuing acknowledgement and redress for the harms they have suffered, whether through historical legacies or persisting violations.
Transitional justice is traditionally viewed through the lens of legal and institutional frameworks designed to address human rights violations in the wake of conflict or repression. However, early advocates like South African constitutional judge Albie Sachs recognised the limits of this approach. As a key figure in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, established following apartheid to investigate human rights violations and promote national healing, Sachs realised that legal tools alone cannot bridge the gap between formal proceedings and the lived needs of survivors seeking accountability and a nation in need of healing. He argued that culture, including poetry, cinema, theatre, and music, is essential for imagining a new society. By confronting traumatic histories and preserving memory, artistic practices foster a form of restoration and repair that the law cannot achieve.
Within a European context, whose global entanglements are currently marked by multiple and overlapping crises, ranging from rising nationalism and democratic backsliding to climate-induced displacement and systemic discrimination, the limitations of purely judicial efforts are clear. This disparity is felt deeply by victims of war, but also within societies grappling with the enduring legacies of colonialism, environmental injustice, and other forms of systemic abuse.
While TJA draws on the foundational framework of legal scholar Ruti Teitel, who defines transitional justice as the “full range of diverse processes and mechanisms used by a society to address massive past abuses,” the programme recognises that the global discourse is evolving. Practices are expanding as communities take on the role of active witnesses, collating documentation and evidence of harms as they are being enacted, and there has been an expansion of the “justice imagination”, a term that refers to our collective capacity to envision more ambitious forms of repair and accountability.
To address these failures, the three international cultural platforms AFIELD, Arts of the Working Class and Framer Framed launch the Transitional Justice with Artists Grant: application deadline 2 May 2026. The programme is distributing six grants of €10.000 and awarding a six-month fellowship, including a residency in Amsterdam, publishing activities, and regular, thematic online meetings, to practising artists, cultural practitioners, or key members of initiatives addressing the legacies of injustice and violence.
Apply here.
