At the Scene of the Crime: Observer as Witness to the Finding Our Voice Exhibition

This chapter explores the aesthetics of law in the exhibition, Finding Our Voice: Sister Survivors Speak, a collaboration among museum curators, sexual assault survivors, and allies featured at the Michigan State University Museum of Art. The exhibition chronicles abuses by serial rapist, former USA Gymnastics team doctor and MSU professor Larry Nassar, and celebrates the bravery of Nassar’s survivors in speaking out about the trauma they experienced. Analyzing four works from the exhibition, this chapter explores varied manifestations of law—as artifact, providing a vital record of past abuses at the hands of the perpetrator and the university, and as aspirational, a uniquely powerful vehicle for effecting personal transformation and meaningful social change. The chapter situates legal aesthetics within the public-facing institution of the museum, exploring how aesthetic representations of law are evolving in the context of changing norms and recent social movements.