REstART 2025: Sharon Daniel – Inside the Distance

The interactive documentary Inside the Distance offers a deeply immersive exploration of restorative justice by staging re-enactments of real-life encounters between victims, offenders, and mediators. Based on firsthand accounts collected by digital media artist Sharon Daniel, this work reconstructs these pivotal moments, inviting audiences to witness and engage with the complex dynamics at play in processes of accountability, healing, and reconciliation. Inside the Distance allows viewers to step into the perspectives of different participants (those who have caused harm, those who have suffered it, and those who facilitate dialogue between them). By shifting between these viewpoints, Daniel highlights the fluidity of roles within restorative justice, revealing how the lines between victim and perpetrator are not always fixed. This nuanced approach challenges conventional narratives of crime and punishment, instead emphasising the potential for understanding, transformation, and shared humanity. It ultimately serves as a powerful tool for raising awareness about alternative approaches to justice, ones that prioritize dialogue, accountability, and healing over retribution.

This REstART event, in the context of REstART Festival 2025 will be a joint exploration of this interactive documentary with panelists who participated in the project 12 years ago, such as Prof. Ivo Aertsen, Dr. Brunilda Pali, senior mediators, and people with lived experience. The artist Sharon Daniel will be joining the discussion online.