Published December 01,2023
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More than 1,300 artists and performers, together with Academy Award successful British actress Olivia Colman, have signed a letter addressing the humanities and tradition sector, accusing cultural establishments within the West of “repressing, silencing and stigmatizing Palestinian voices and perspectives.”
“We find it deeply troubling and, frankly, indicative of a disturbing double standard that expressions of solidarity, which have been readily offered to other peoples facing brutal oppression, have not been extended to Palestinians,” the letter stated.
The artists stated that such a discrepancy raises severe questions on bias in response to “grave human rights violations.”
“Far from supporting our calls for an end to the violence, many cultural institutions in Western countries are systematically repressing, silencing and stigmatizing Palestinian voices and perspectives. This includes targeting and threatening the livelihoods of artists and arts workers who express solidarity with Palestinians, as well as cancelling performances, screenings, talks, exhibitions and book launches.”
The writers and poets embrace famend names like Deborah Frances-White, Kamila Shamsie, Marina Warner, Lara Pawson, Abbie Spallen, Camilla Whitehill, Daisy Lafarge, Malika Booker and Emily Berry.
“Despite this pressure, artists in their thousands are following their conscience and continuing to speak out. Freedom of expression, as enshrined in the Human Rights Act and the European Convention of Human Rights, is the backbone of our creative lives, and fundamental to democracy,” the artists stated within the letter.
Among the examples of censorship the letter cites are Lisson Gallery’s “postponement” of a London exhibition by Ai Weiwei; Folkwang Museum in Essen’s last-minute cancellation of curator Anais Duplan’s Afrofuturism exhibition and Saarland Museum’s cancellation of a solo exhibition by artist Candice Breitz; and the announcement by Hollywood producers that they’d dropped actress Melissa Barrero from Scream 7.
In every case, the establishment attributed the cancellation to feedback made by the artist in assist of Palestinian rights and unrelated to the content material of their skilled work.
Letter signatory Hassan Abdulrazzak, whose play And Here I Am primarily based on the lifetime of a Palestinian actor was cancelled in Paris in October, was quoted by Artists for Palestine UK as saying: “This censorship is as frustrating as it is wrongheaded. Now is the time to listen to Palestinians, to understand what their lives are like.”
The letter urged arts organizations to affix requires a everlasting cease-fire and to “stand up for artists and workers who voice their support for Palestinian rights.”
Two thousand poets introduced a boycott of the Poetry Foundation within the US after its journal refused to publish a e-book evaluation it had commissioned.
Artists and writers across the globe have declared that they’ll not work with Artforum journal, and editorial employees have resigned in response to the firing of the editor David Velasco who had revealed a letter, signed by 8,000 artists, that referred to as for a cease-fire and for Palestinian liberation.
Source: www.anews.com.tr