Conversation on Methods in Law and the Humanities
Ghost Criminology Imaginings: Art, Banality and Violence
Join us for an informal conversation with Prof Carolyn McKay, centred on her book A Ghost Criminology of Motels: Art, Crime and the Hospitality Industry (Emerald Publishing). The introductory chapter will be circulated to registrants for discussion.
Visual art methods demand keen attentiveness to the imagination, spatiality, aesthetics and sensory attributes. Increasingly, contemporary criminology seeks to engage with such concepts and, in this interdisciplinary workshop, I discuss the visual arts method used in my crime scene motel project. My visual arts practice provides a means to actively do and materially create a tangible form of criminological response: through embodied, sensorial and imaginative immersion in a site of crime and a hands-on visual arts studio practice. I argue for the epistemological value of creative methods and the harnessing of the ‘sensuous intellect’ (McLeod 2006; Knueppel 2010). I also discuss my artistic co-opting of the forensic aesthetic and responses to sites of violence. Through my detailed photographs of the crime scene motel rooms, I interrogate absence, to capture a sense of the former guests, lingering ghosts, and traumascape traces, all within the mundanity of motels.
Dr Carolyn McKay is Associate Dean (Research Education) and Associate Professor at the University of Sydney Law School. She is also a practicing visual artist, having completed postgraduate studies at Sydney College of the Arts. Her artworks engage with criminal justice issues, and recent works respond to criminal case law narratives regarding crimes in motels. She exhibited The Crime Scene Motel Project solo show at Scratch Art Space, Sydney, 2022 and Floating Between Couches & Motels solo light installation, Sydney Law School Library 2023-2024. Carolyn’s light and video installations, The APOD Solution and In the Palm of our Hands, were exhibited in BOUNDARIES: TRANSCENDED, 2024 at Watt Space, University of Newcastle, NSW. The APOD Solution was exhibited at the Sydney Law School Library 2025. The recipient of many awards, Carolyn has also been selected for residencies at Bundanon 2005, The Lock-Up 2009 and Nobby’s Lighthouse 2023. Her Crime Scene Motel Project exhibition received the 2023 ‘Non-Traditional Research Output Award’ from the Australian Legal Research Awards, a prestigious national scheme funded by the Council of Australian Law Deans. For full bio, visit https://www.carolynmckay.com/.
Chair: Shane Chalmers, Assistant Professor & Deputy Director of the Centre for Interdisciplinary Legal Studies, The University of Hong Kong Faculty of Law
To register, please go to https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_regform.aspx?guest=Y&UEID=105860.
For inquiries, please contact Ms. Grace Chan at / 3917 4727.