History of the Sydney Biennale Boycott

History of the 19th Biennale of Sydney Boycott.

The first open letter that opened the conversation about the ethics of funds from detention camps profits, funding the Sydney Biennale, via sponsor Transfield, was published on February 4 via a new research website, Cross Border Operational Matters. This is a website that posts on the 'most damaging of Australian policies'- mandatory detention research.

This dialogue on arts sponsorship and the Biennale, is now in live and constantly evolving action, with artists announcing they are withdrawing, and arts works and writers (myself) boycotting the Biennale, and almost every day a new letter is published on social media, through the public forum of blogs, and on facebook pages.

Crossborder Operational Matters, a research blog and website, is reporting on and publishing open letters and articles on the new conversations emerging around the artists withdrawal and boycott of the 19th Biennale of Sydney, on ethical grounds, in response to the news of the detention camp profit funding of art and artists, on the part of the major sponsor Transfield, a multi-national construction corporation, based in Sydney, which has been interlinked with the Sydney Biennale, through funding since its inception in 1973. 

The Operational Matters media site published the first open letter calling for a boycott, by Matthew Kiem, design academic, based in Sydney, who objected to the thought of taking his students to the Biennale, when Transfield the major sponsor, was making profits, syphoned into the funding for the Biennale.

Open letter from Matthew Kiem on Operational Matters sites 4 February 2014.
Read the letter here:
http://xborderoperationalmatters.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/art-educators-biennale/.    

This prompted arts writer Ben Eltham to approach the site and ask if he could reproduce the letter in an article that he wrote for Arts Hub (published 6.2.14).

At much the same time, on 8 February I wrote an open letter on my blog, here, announcing that I would boycott on ethical grounds, and outlining my reasons from the perspective of an arts writer and art critic, with a current invitation to preview the Sydney Biennale on the media tour, on 20 March. I will instead be writing about the alternatives, the many other arts events in Sydney at the same time, and most of all the artists who have withdrawn their works in protest.

I am boycotting the Biennale, as outlined on this blog, and so will not be accepting that invitation. Instead I am writing about the alternatives that are rapidly coming into being, and the dialogue that is emerging around this complex issue. This is a live issue, and I am reporting on it and commenting, as it unfolds. Later this year I will publish a book which will reflect on what is happening now.

Meanwhile, here is some  information (at his link) about the groundbreaking Cross Borders Operational Matters site, that started the dialogue in publishing the first open letter, the form through which this dialogue has taken place, and continues to unfold. The researchers can be contacted at:maschine.research@gmail.com.

Ruth Skilbeck  5.3. 2014

NB This is provisional of course, to keep the record as events unfold, and will be updated on this blog. 

Mandatory Detention Research contact:
maschine.research@gmail.com"

Why I Will Be Boycotting the 2014 Sydney Biennale- Protest Refugee Detention Centre Profiteering in Corporate Sponsorship by Ruth Skilbeck, Feb 8, 2014

http://ruthskilbeck.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/why-i-will-be-boycotting-2014-sydney.html