An 'Ethical' Future for the Biennale of Sydney? 'Boycott' Artists to Draft New Corporate Social Responsibility Policy

Art, Sponsorship, and Ethics- the Case of the 19th Biennale of Sydney

By Ruth Skilbeck

The key point that has emerged from the boycott of the Biennale of Sydney by international and Australian artists who are themselves in the Biennale, is ethics, or more precisely ethical sponsorship.  This has now been acknowledged in the latest changes emerging as a result of the boycott, and its positive after effects, the latest development is that the Biennale artist's Working Group - has been invited by the Biennale Board to draw up a charter of corporate social responsibility for future biennales in Sydney.

What had become increasingly clear the more research was conducted by academics and critics (documented on this site) into the sponsorship of the Biennale, and the moral compromises expected by former corporate sponsors of the artists, is that artists and academics and critics, oppose immoral and inhumane funding sources (in this case detention camps in breach of international conventions) and will take action -in this case boycotting-  to maintain the integrity of art, by recognising that the artist and art comes first, not the sponsor. 

Far from the pessimistic outcomes predicted by a very persistent six week opposition on facebook by some local artists who wished to maintain the status quo, and not rock the funding boat (or something), what has eventuated is a real positive change for the better, that can only benefit all concerned, who have art and its future as their highest goal.

As a result of the prominent international artists' boycott, nine artists withdrew, contingent on the Biennale Board keeping the controversial funding links with Transfield, which was recently awarded a 1.2 billion dollar contract to increase its services to the refugee and asylum seeker mandatory camps (internment without trial) on Manus Island and Nauru which are in breach of international refugee conventions. Less than two weeks ago, the boycott ended when the Biennale Board severed these ties and the chairman of the Biennale, Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, who is also a director and owner of Transfield, resigned. This happened after international organisations and governments funding the international boycotting artists, supported their ethical position, and began to make moves to take out their funding.

This has been little reported as such in the mainstream media in Australia, but maybe from now on there will be more open reporting, on the issues involved. The boycott has opened up a very important and much needed discussion on art and ethics in Australia, in the international context of the art world. 

After Ties Were Cut by the Biennale Board with Detention Camps Funds

Most of the artists who had withdrawn, then allowed their works to be shown in the Biennale. I too as an art critic and writer, who was boycotting, then accepted my media preview invitation (as I have written about on this site) and went to the media preview yesterday, and heard the talks from the Biennale representatives, Marah Braye CEO- who acknowledged that "some of the world's best art comes from protest"- and Juliana Engberg Artistic Director (Curator)- who confided that she had even encouraged some of the artists to withdraw on the moral grounds, and also acknowledged what a [noble] sacrifice the boycotting artists made, as they potentially were sacrificing a career, and what a hard decision it was for some. 

Ethical Art and Artworks

I spent most time on Cockatoo Island yesterday, at the media preview, with the artists and artworks that had been in the boycott, and had withdrawn and then returned, following the severing of the Biennale Board ties with the asylum seekers mandatory detention camps funding. There were two art works, in particular, that I spent a lot of time discussing, and also participating in, as one of them, Bosbolobosboco #6 (Departure-Transit-Arrival) 2014, had a long audio component, the recorded voices of refugees recalling in words images of their journeys. 
Also Ahmet Ogut's installation, Stones to Throw, Version Two, 2014, on aspects of the effects on village children in war. Children as young as twelve being tried and prosecuted as adults under counterterrorism laws, for throwing stones at the armed military forces.

These art works are by three of the artists I have already mentioned and written of, on this site: artist-duo Libia Castro and Olafur Olafsson, and Ahmet Ogut. Neither of which works are in the exhibition guide, I assume because it was printed before they had returned to the Biennale.

I was also very interested to see other works which I will write about as well. Works by the further artists who had withdrawn on ethical grounds and then returned (Agnieska Polska, Sara van der Heide, Nicoline van Harskamp, Nathan Gray), and those two who did not return (Gabrielle de Vietri, and Charlie Sofo). I will also be writing about some works of artists who did not withdraw. Yet my primary concern, as stated throughout my reports on this site, is to write about this self nominated group who put the higher good, compassion for others, first, and who thereby represent a new movement in art which is emerging around the world, and now here in Sydney. In supporting this group of artists, some of whom do not now have their return to the biennale acknowledged in the exhibition guide, and their works are not clearly indicated, I found them by chance as I was walking alone, I will write about their works first.

I will write on these works, in articles, and in a piece on The Daily Fugue soon.

Meanwhile, today's news from the Biennale Artists Working Group (in the previous post on this site) gives a glimpse at a possible ethical and bright future for the Biennale, imagined from this excerpt from latest news from the Biennale Artists Working Group announced today (and reproduced in the previous post on the Daily Fugue):

Future of the BiennaleThe Biennale has invited the artists' Working Group to be involved in the drafting of its Corporate Social Responsibility Policy. At this juncture we would like to accept this invitation and look forward to working with the Biennale to develop new, ethical sponsorship arrangements. We see this as a positive opportunity for the Biennale to find sponsorship from corporations whose values align with those of the Biennale and its stakeholders.
Additional to our involvement in the CSR Policy, we suggest that the Board seek to diversify its membership to include independent curators, artists, critics and academics. This may assist in bridging the gap between corporate interests and those of artists and the wider arts community. ( Biennale artist's Working Group, 19.3.2014).

Blue sky is opening ahead, it seems.

Ruth Skilbeck 19.3.2014

World Exclusive. Sydney Biennale Artists Response to Cutting Ties with 'Detention Camps' Sponsor

Sydney Biennale Artists Response to Cutting Ties with 'Detention Camps' Sponsor

By Ruth Skilbeck,  9.3.2014

"We can still not at this moment answer on how we or the other artists that withdrew will be responding, for we have all taken a moment to observe the new situation and talk about next steps"- Libia Castro and Olafur Olafsson, Biennale of Sydney artists.

This the email message sent to me by prominent international contemporary artist-duo, Libia Castro (Spain) and Olafur Olafsson (Iceland) on their response yesterday to the announcement that the Biennale of Sydney chairman, Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, has resigned following international pressure and the boycott of artists from the Biennale, over the sponsorship ties to mandatory detention refugee camps funding. 

Belgiorno- Nettis is the chairman of Transfield the construction multinational which manages the Manus Island detention camp which came under international media scrutiny two weeks ago when a refugee inmate was murdered and 70 seriously injured when they were attacked within the compound by guards, local PNG police and service staff, according to the first hand reports, aired on Australian TV.

 Libia Castro and Olafur Olafsson are two of the nine artists who withdrew their works from the Biennale in protest. I met and spoke with them at an artist talk they gave last Thursday, and we did a photo shoot, at Sydney College of the Arts, where they are artists in residence until the end of the month.

In their talk they said that they decided to withdraw, after the Biennale Board responded to the requests of over 40 artists to sever the ties with Transfield, when the Biennale Board initially responded with an open letter statement that ‘without Transfield there would be no Biennale”. Is it the Transfield sponsor Biennale, they asked, when they had come to Sydney to exhibit their work in the Sydney public Biennale?  When the sponsor further told them that artists could discuss the issues of refugee detention, in the Biennale itself, they saw this as a conflict and compromising artistic autonomy.

Photo copyright  Ruth Skilbeck 2014
Libia Castro and Olafur Olafsson, with a Refugee Art Project representative, and trauma psychologist
and a piece of their new art work at Sydney College of the Arts, March 6, 2014.

The Artwork:

Castro and Olafsson told me they are in the process of making a new work in collaboration with refugees from the Refugee Art Project and a psychologist specializing in trauma, and I talked also with them, as they were there to record the voices of refugees for their new audio-visual and performance-based art work. The refugees will record their descriptions of images, that they remember and imagine, associated with their journeys, and these will be made into an art work which audiences can also participate in, through listening and imagining and empathizing with the voices.

Without seeing it yet this seems to fit in with the theme of the Biennale of You Imagine What You Desire. If so, these refugees may be able to imagine what they desire in a positive way, with the outcome of reaching or making a new home. Unlike those who have the unimaginably traumatic experience of finding themselves victims of "horror used as a deterrent" in the indefinite mandatory camps in Manus Island and Nauru, which have been in the news over the past few week, which is what prompted the artists to boycott the Biennale in protest.

In their artist talk, Castro and Olafsson, explained that because of the focus of their art practice, they felt compelled to take action and withdraw their work, when they found out about the connection to refugee detention camps, as they have made works in the past about and with refugees; as well as the work they are making now to show in Sydney. The artists showed an excerpt from their video works, including Caregivers, with an original operatic soundtrack, which they made on the large numbers of Ukrainian refugees, 6-8,000 per year, who are working as caregivers to ageing Italians in family homes in North Italy.

Castro and Olafsson also showed and discussed two more of their video works on relevant themes: Lobbyists, on the very large number of professional lobbyists at the European Union parliament in Brussels, with an original reggae soundtrack by an Icelandic band. This is part of their art practice working with activists.

The third work they discussed was Your Country Doesn't Exist, a video work set and filmed on a gondola in the Venice canals, a female opera singer, standing in the gondola sings against the invasion of Iraq, as the boat passes tourists, and locals, some of whom contribute to the audio, including an elderly woman's voice telling of the palace her family has lived in for the past 120 years. She was an intervention, in the actual filming, said Olafur later. She was watching us filming, she kept making remarks, "what a beautiful voice he has"... and so we started talking to her and decided to include her voice. Your Country Doesn't Exist was shown at the Venice Biennale in 2011.

Libia Castro and Olafur Olafsson’s statement about their art practice, states that their artistic practice: "concentrates on the phenomena of transition towards the post-fordist phase of political, social and cultural development. Exclusion and exploitation appear as one of the main issues of [their] critique of flexible subjectivities, under pressure of the decline of the nation-state and the rise of global markets and corporations. The artists work across media and in a variety of genres and disciplines, "from political history through gender studies and sociology". Their works are often made "in collaboration with other artists, professionals, local citizens decision makers, activists and refugees alike."

In their works they state they: "critique an injured world of non-belonging and denied participation."

Given their art practice, protesting the contexts of biennale art sponsorship becomes part of their work as artists, as a form of self-critique and critique of the art world itself. This is part of their work, and is a relevant addition to the international discourse on the themes of art and sponsorship in the post-fordist era, and in the new era following the global financial crises, the "rise of global markets and corporations."

Other prominent international artists showing in Sydney, working with these themes include Isaac Julien the acclaimed British artist, whose exhibition of new video works, straight form MOMA in New York will open at the end of the week at Roslyn Oxley9 gallery in Sydney (not part of the Biennale).

Libia Castro and Olafur Olaffsson were in the group of the Sydney Biennale artists, followed by art installers and artists who withdrew in protest at the funding of the Biennale from the profits of indefinite mandatory detention (imprisonment) refugee camps, run by the companies owned by the former chairman of the Biennale.

The ex-Chairman and Sponsor:

On Friday, the Biennale Board announced the resignation of Luca Begiorno-Nettis, chairman of the Biennale and also director of Transfield, the sponsor that has recently been awarded a 1.2 billion contract to run indefinite mandatory detention camps on Manus Island, and Nauru which have been roundly criticized by humanitarian groups, and the UN and led tothe boycott of the Biennale, by international and local artists, and art workers and critics. 

Belgiorn-Nettis resigned he said after international governments began to ask questions about why the Biennale Board was not severing its ties (presumably) given the artists protests, and also the protests of humanitarian organisations.

Luca Belgiorno-Nettis himself said on Friday 7.3.14, as published in the Guardian:

"Yesterday I learnt that some international government agencies are beginning to question the decision of the Biennale’s board to stand by Transfield."

The Government Policy

Despite the international and national criticism, including support from The Greens Party for the boycotting artists, the government announced that Australia is continuing its policies of indefinite mandatory detention.

The Artists Who Withdrew:

What will the artists do now, whether they will return to the Biennale or not, is one question that is being asked and debated amongst the artists who withdrew.

The situation is not clear, as to the wider context and the actual funding that remains, and so the artists are taking time to think about their next steps.

In the constantly evolving context of the 19th Biennale Sydney life and art are not only imitating each other but directly influencing and shaping the cultural, and also social change that will emerge from the artists protests, joining the voices of international humanitarian groups, against the inhumanity of indefinitely "detaining" (incarcerating) refugees in camps on prison islands, and also the profits, being used to fund public art events, such as the Biennale of Sydney.

This is a positive outcome, and a change for the better, a new awareness, and engagement of the Australia art world with the international context of ongoing debates about these very issues of art and corporate sponsorship. And a new form of self-critique and art world critique that is developing now in Australia. As the international artists in Sydney now show, this is part of a discussion that is happening internationally.

 But meanwhile, artists and observers are waiting to find out more, and to decide how to act on that.

This is a historic moment in which the relationship between art and funding sponsorship is being openly challenged and debated in the context of the art world and the Sydney Biennale. Whatever happens now will be watched with great interest by the international, and local, art world and will be part of an important newly significant art world conversation.

Ruth Skilbeck  9.3.2014

Text and Photograph: Copyright Ruth Skilbeck

Kerbstone, or Single Mother Academic Curb Your Enthusiasm

Kerbstone: Single Mother Academic Curb Your Enthusiasm

Yesterday an incident occurred - in my short absence whilst I went to Sydney to hear the talk by international ex Sydney Biennale artists, Libia Castro and Olaf Olafsson who have withdrawn their work in protest to the ties to detention camps profit of the major sponsors, Transfield a construction and infrastructure corporation that is also involved in arts sponsorship. (Which I have been writing about on this blog).
When I returned after a busy day - 3 hours each way on the slow train (there is not fast train) 6 hours on the train in all and in between a few hours at the talk, at Sydney College of the Arts then talking with the artists, about their new and ongoing work that they are still making with Refugee Art Projects artists and a psychologist dealing with trauma- an exciting and significant work that I look forward to participating in and reviewing here soon, when I returned almost at midnight, I found an unpleasant surprise awaiting me:

A $1,212.00 fine, in two almost impossible to read ticket details under the windscreen wiper of my poor old car, that died many months ago and has been parked outside my house, as I cannot park it next to the house on the section of my property where I as a citizen should and could (if I had means) be able to park as I pay rates, for basic council service, and everyone else in my street and the surrounding street, has access to their own property/yards off the street but me. That is because the kerbstone is old- and over 100 years old- a 12inch deep solid convict hewn kerbstone between the gutter and pavement is too high for me to drive over, if it was not, I would have simply parked my car next to my house, and would not have this problem now, a problem of poverty which is recurring and seems to plague me.

But I am surprised and dismayed, I had spoken with a ranger a few months ago and explained that it was my house, my car, I have not used it unregistered, it is waiting until I can either afford to have it fixed and registered, or to have it taken away, by a wreckers yard and he said that was all right to leave it there, until I had been able to raise the money (thousands of dollars) to have the kerbstone altered myself, so that I could drive over it. He said the council it seems does not provide that service, although I certainly do not own the kerbstone in the public street, yet it seems I have to be the one to pay to have it modified. Why?
To make it worse, this is the second time that due to lack of money, I have been fined $1200 for having my own car parked- unused- outside my own house (the property I pay annual hefty rates to the council for), as I have not been able to afford to have it registered, and have not been able to afford to have the kerbstones, council property modified so that I can simply do what every other neighbour around here does, drive their car to sit next to their house.

I am the one who is now hit with massive fines because I have these massive problems of kerbstones on the street outside my property which I pay rates for and have done since 1995.

I wrote a short story based on this, and the impossible situation facing single women, older women, divorced mothers, and precarious workers in today's economy, when a resistant public thing, like the height of a kerb in a public street, can make it impossible for some to cross, and remain solvent.
Whereas for others, the men who are able to (illegally but they do it) make their own modifications to council kerbstones with hammers and tools put in their own kerb modification, and driveways, or find the metal plates that they use as ramps to drive up.
When I first had this issue, I rang the council and asked if they could help me, if they had any ramps I could use, or did they know where  I could purchase those metal ramps, to drive my car up next to my house. I was told that these are illegal. But there are lots of them around here, I can see them!
Does not matter they are illegal.
Still it seems they are not fined.
Or they would not still be there in use on the same street I live on.

The response was a couple of days later- the first of  $1200 fines, that I have been penalised with in the last three years. So far with yesterday's fine that makes almost $2,500 because I have not been able to drive over the council kerbstone and park the car next to my house, where it is allowed to sit unregistered until I have the means to fix it. Meanwhile it is sitting in front of the house, instead of the side of the house, on the public street, because I cannot drive up and over the public kerb which for some unknown reason the council has not modified, even though they have done works on the streets in this area for the past three years now including modifying the kerb just a few metres further up the street so that people can more easily and safely cross the road.
But not for me.

Even though they know of my problem as I have discussed it and they "gave me permission" to put in a driveway and have the kerb moderated so long as it was using the plans they specified. A council officer came out and measured the kerb and sent me the plans with the legal gradient.
This only for me of course. My neighbours next to me and all the way up and down the street, have done it, or someone has for them. At whatever angles they arrive at.
I was told the house over the road was illegally done,
Still I am the one who is penalised for staying within the law and not simply finding a way with metal or wood to make a ramp.

So it is a case of a single woman penalised for not having the balls to break the law which is what so many do, by having the physical strength and means of doing it themselves.
And in a place where the council does not help by modifying their infrastructures so that rate-paying citizens can access their own properties.
At least not for single women in precarious life positions.

Instead they fine them.
Huge fine which have the potential to break them.
It was the same when I was working as a casual and contract academic, never able to make ends meet year round, because they would never give enough work, to make this security- and to enable me to do things like put in a driveway and have the kerbstones in the public street modified so that I could have access to the yard of my own house which I pay for.
My story Kerbstones, Single Mother Academic Curb Your Enthusiasm, will appear in a collection of my short writings, Breaking Away to be published later this year.

It seems that it is still relevant.


Ruth Skilbeck 7.3.2014