The child of two criminal defense attorneys, Strafer’s work often centers the US legal system and how its inherent theatricality shapes and distorts our collective sense of justice. In her 2019 film PEP (Process Entanglement Procedure), the artist dramatizes a public hearing, moving between scenes of a plastic doll witness and flashbacks to the events she describes shown in first-person through a hand-held camera. The intertwined scenes illustrate the gap between a rehearsed testimony meant to conform to courtroom standards and the harrowing experiences described. In LOOPHOLE (2023), the first film in the artist’s “Loophole” trilogy, Strafer reenacts the events of the 1991 rape trial of William Kennedy Smith. “Both my parents were criminal defense attorneys,” says Strafer. “Their work was really not that different from making any kind of art, in a way, because the justice system in the U.S. is so theatrical.” Throughout LOOPHOLE, the artist highlights the performative nature of the trial by showing the defense lawyer rehearsing his remarks, inadequately blurring the victim’s face, and inserting a musical number into the proceedings. 

In the final film in the “Loophole” trilogy, TALK SHOW (2026), the artist sets most of the film in a daytime talk show that takes place in two settings: 1999 and the afterlife. In 1999, a psychologist guides the audience through a meditation to heal the trauma of their inner child; while in the afterlife, the host interviews soldiers from World War II and the victims they’ve raped. Juxtaposing these timelines, Strafer highlights the common narratives and tropes used to understand trauma and violence, demonstrating how these easy explanations are often insufficient. “It’s really important to me that my work complicates morality,” says Strafer. “I wanted to think about, not just individual trauma and individual inner child, but also our traumas and collective past as a country.” In earlier works, like PEAK HEAVEN LOVE FOREVER (2022), the artist blends humor and violence, complicating simplistic moral judgment. The video follows four characters aboard an air ambulance on a transatlantic flight, when suddenly each of the passengers is transformed into a life-sized cloth doll except for a young female passenger, who pulls out a pistol and begins to shoot the other passengers. Whether this is fantasy or reality and what caused this violent outburst remain unexplained, leaving the viewer to work out what they’ve just seen.