Biennale Boycott Artists Led Way for Transfield Divestments
By Ruth Skilbeck
9th September 2015
9th September 2015
As the divestment campaign gains momentum we can look back and acknowledge with appreciation and respect those who led the way, and were attacked and criticised in Australia in the process: the artists
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Photograph © Copyright Ruth Skilbeck 2014
Libia Castro and Olafur Olafsson, with Refugee Art Project artist, trauma psychologist, and art work at Sydney College of the Arts, March 6, 2014.
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I wrote this a few weeks back and tried to get it published in the mainstream media in Australia but was unable to so am publishing it here.
In a dark time when it seemed to
many that politicians lost their moral compass the artists boycott of Sydney
Biennale sponsor and Detention Centre contractor, Transfield, has had an
ongoing impact in activism for humanitarian change
A split between human and God, reason and religion
that saw the rise of the modern artist characterized the 18th
Century Renaissance; a fresh alignment of ethics and freedom of expression is now
bringing Art and Religion together, in distinctive ways, for a compelling
reason: shared concern for humanity that signifies the start of new global
humanism. What is most significant is the new focus on moral action, for
ultimately it is morality that will bring about change in refugee and
immigration policy.
On a Spring evening across Australia, candle-lit
vigils (the Greens ‘Light the Dark’) drew thousands of people of all walks of
life to parks and open spaces in cities to hear speeches against the current
refugee policies, and detention camps, to call for a moral change, more
humanity to be shown to refugees, to increase intake, and to lament the
drowning of Syrian toddler, Aylan Kurdi, 3, washed up on a Turkish beach. His
tragic image has united people across the world in compassion for the Syrian
refugees and also condemnation of the forces dislocating millions of people in
the wars in Africa and the Middle East.
The outpouring of support for global asylum seekers,
and public actions against Australian offshore detention centres and policies
in breach of basic human rights, is uniting an increasing social movement of
people who do not usually come together to protest and take action on social
issues, including international artists, healthcare and community workers, the
National Council of Churches Refugee Taskforce. Actively and democratically
calling for the change of asylum seeker policy to a humanitarian approach, by
deploying a shrewd combination of boycott, divestment, and moral sanctions.
The Artists Sydney Biennale Boycott 2014 worked
The effective movement of boycott, divestment and moral
sanction began in Sydney with the artists Sydney Biennale Boycott in 2014 just
over a month before the international art event was due to open on 21 March
2014, when prominent international artists found out major Biennale sponsor
Transfield had a new contract to manage the Australian-run Manus Island and
Nauru detention centre camps. Some of the international artists were working
with refugees to make their art works in the Biennale or were making works
about refugee issues.
The letter signed by 51 artists to the Biennale Board
of Directors stated:
we
will not accept the mandatory detention of asylum seekers, because it is
ethically indefensible and in breach of human rights; and that, as a network of
artists, arts workers and a leading cultural organization, we do not want to be
associated with these practices.
They resisted the use of their art to “add value” and
“cultural capital” to the image of a corporation profiting from detention
camps. The letter added:
Our
interests as artists don’t merely concern our individual moral positions. We
are concerned too with the ways cultural institutions deal with urgent social
responsibilities
The situation was complicated by the fact that Sydney
Biennale Chairman Luca Belgiorno-Nettis was a director of Transfield.14 days
before the Biennale had been due to start, Mr Belgiorno-Nettis resigned from
the Board, and the Biennale Board announced it was cutting the ties. Most of
the artists then returned into the Biennale, as the boycott had seemed to
achieve its objective
However in the run-up now to the next Biennale, the
Transfield logo is still on the sponsor list. The Belgiorno-Nettis family has
announced it sold its share in Transfield Services the infrastructure
multinational that has the contract to run the Detention Centres; and owns only
Transfield Holdings, which it says is not associated with the detention
centres. (Transfield Holdings have said publicly that they have required that
Transfield Services change the name, this may happen after October 2015).
Meanwhile, there has been activist investor success in
influencing a major super fund HESTA, whose members are predominantly health
care workers, to divest from Transfield Services, after an activist investor
campaign HESTA Divest, HESTA divested from Transfield Services in which it had
held a 3% stake that was worth over $18 million citing evidence of the human
rights abuses as indicators of high risk that the share price will drop. A
number of companies are indicated to be following this example due to the
increasing financial risk for members.
Last week saw the publication of the Senate Inquiry
into Taking responsibility: conditions
and circumstances at Australia’s Regional Processing Centre in Nauru which
confirmed the reported abuses of the Moss Report (released in March this year)
and the Human Rights Commission report (The
Forgotten Children, 2014), and recommending removal of all the children, “with
their families if they have them”, from immigration detention “as soon as
possible”.
Enlightenment is needed to change the policies and
practices from above. On the strength of the Senate Inquiry report, and the
AHRC report, and mounting pressures of an influential social and cultural
ethical movement, there now is a new moral direction ahead.
Ruth Skilbeck, PhD is an author, artist, and freelance photo- journalist. Her latest novel Australian
Fugue: Missing a psychological mystery is coming out in October.
REFERENCES:
Taking
Responsibility: conditions and circumstances at Australia’s Regional Processing
Centre in Nauru.
The
Forgotten Children: National Inquiry into Children in Immigration Detention (2014) Australian Human Rights Commission
Rose, Sally, ‘Hesta dumps Transfield citing detention
centre abuses’, Sydney Morning Herald,
August 18, 2015
Press Release National Council of Churches
in Australia, ‘Transfield awarded yet another 5 years to mismanage offshore
detention centres,’ 31 August 2015
#19
BoS Working Group
“Blog
created by artists involved in the 19th Biennale of Sydney to discuss the call
to boycott the Biennale over its sponsor Transfield's involvement in offshore
mandatory detention.”
Skilbeck, Ruth, An Art Critic’s Diary, The Daily Fugue, coverage of the
Biennale Boycott 8 February- 19 March 2014
‘Biennale Artists Call to Cut Ties with
Transfield Sponsorship’, 20.2.2014
Photograph ©
Copyright Ruth Skilbeck 2014
Libia Castro and Olafur
Olafsson, with Refugee Art Project artist, trauma psychologist, and art work at
Sydney College of the Arts, March 6, 2014.
News Release
Transfield Services preferred tenderer for DIBP
contract
Monday, August 31, 2015
http://www.transfieldservices.com/news/transfield-services-preferred-tenderer-for-dibp-contract#sthash.cNQoqS7A.dpuf
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