Suse Itzel – Rechtsprechungsdatenbank NRWE

In the organizer's words:

A keyword search is available in the NRWE case law database
(https://nrwesuche.justiz.nrw.de/) can be used to retrieve decisions from the North Rhine-Westphalian courts. The database contains anonymized details on the course of events and the CVs of defendants questioned in court. The judgments published are those that are "of importance to the public". In her research, Suse Itzel looked at child sexual abuse trials. How many convictions are based solely on statements made by the victims? How often were images of abuse the decisive evidence? How often did the violence take place over a period of years? What criteria are used to decide which verdicts are "important to the public"? How can she approach this database as an artist? How can she deal with the gruesome details in these verdicts?

The research initially resulted in the visual part of a spatial installation that visitors can approach without being immediately overwhelmed by cruelty. An audio track picks up on the research questions via headphones. In essayistic form, it also reflects on Itzel's own biographical entanglement: Would she herself have been happy about the conviction of her perpetrator? Would it even have been enough to press charges back then? Would it have changed anything for her?

Suse Itzel studied at the Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg and the Kunsthochschule für Medien in Cologne. Itzel's video works, objects and expansive installations have been shown in numerous exhibitions since 2009. Her most recent autobiographical works deal with the consequences of sexualized violence, trauma and (mental) illness. Itzel's short film "Ich hätte lieber einen anderen Film gemacht" (I would rather have made another film) has won awards at the Hamburg Short Film Festival, the Kassel Dokfest and the Duisburger Filmwoche, among others. She is a co-founder of the queer-feminist reading and talk series [OHNE PRONOMEN] in Cologne.
www.suse-itzel.info