ABSTRACT
What does it mean to be responsible? And what is the distinction—if there is any, and should there be any—between individual and collective responsibility? How can such a distinction be drawn, and what are its consequences? And what of forgiveness? Who is able to grant forgiveness: an individual, a society, a polity? What does it mean to seek, and to receive, absolution for a historical, and persistent, injustice? From whom can such absolution be sought, and in what form? Can such issues, which are inherently political, be represented in art without making art political (assuming it can ever be anything else)? And finally, how should such art be interpreted, or received, and are the authors themselves ultimately responsible for what they portray, for the perceptions they foster or encourage?
