Chapter 5, The Art of Recognition, explores three dominant narratives which emerge from the art collection of the Constitutional Court of South Africa. These are narratives which recognise people, community, and time as key to the project of justice and democracy in South Africa. Drawing on interviews with artists and viewers, I conduct a visual analysis of artworks by the Bambanani Women’s Group, Marlene Dumas, Dumile Feni, David Goldblatt, Judith Mason, Thomas Mulcaire, Sipho Ndlovu, Georgia Papageorge and Sue Williamson. I argue that the three narratives which emerge from the art collection play a central role in shaping the Court’s larger transitional justice story.They draw attention to how the impossibility of attaining universal justice, is what drives justice practices and the enactment of human rights for particular people and communities at particular times.

Chapter 4, Shaping ‘Legal’ Space, examines the spatial politics of the Constitutional Court of South Africa.The Court’s architecture and art collection are intended to symbolise the values of the Constitution. I explore five themes critical to justice which are dominant in the discourse of the Court – both in how people speak about the Court and in how the Court portrays itself. Four of these themes refer to values rooted in and fostered by the Constitution (accessibility, equality, dignity, and freedom of expression) while the fifth theme (justice under a tree) relates to a process of South African constitutionalism embedded in regional vernacular and post-apartheid identity formation. I analyse each theme by examining how its material manifestation – specific artworks and architectural features – intervene in the appearance and performance of the Court, shaping how the Constitution is understood in different ways. I argue that these material interventions and the space they create are key to the provision of justice at the Court.

Chapter 3, From Prison to Court, provides an historical account of the Constitutional Court of South Africa as a key institution in the ‘new’ South Africa. Established at the point of transition from apartheid to democracy, the Court was built on the site of several former notorious prisons. The court building is a unique space by international comparison, not only because it has transformed the penal site but because it also incorporates artworks into the fabric of the building, and houses a large visual art collection developed by and for the Court. In order to understand the conceptual and concrete transitions of the Court, I trace its development with a particular focus on the unique policies and processes through which the art collection came into being. By drawing on key policy documents, as well reflections from people involved in the initial development of the Court and those who currently inhabit and manage the Court, I argue that art has been a central component of the most significant institution to emerge out of South Africa’s transition and it continues to be so.