Liberate TATE (UK) Artists Group Supports Boycott of Sydney Biennale
21.2.2014 Posted by Ruth Skilbeck
Liberate Tate the UK based artist group that through its art challenges the Tate's associations with BP oil, has published a statement in support of the Artists boycotting the Sydney Biennale, in response to the unethical funding from asylum seeker and war exiles detention camps (prisons) through Transfield sponsorship.
Liberate Tate's statement poses the ethical question from an international perspective which has been lacking in debate in Australian media: "Thinking of the many refugee artists who have been able to practice and make work only by finding asylum and continuing to work in exile – Lucien Freud, Paul Klee, Wassilly Kandisky, Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, Anish Kapoor, Mona Hatoum, the list goes on – is it not a disrespect to their memory, story and experience for the Sydney Biennale to accept funds from a sponsor currently engaged in the incarceration of exiled people? "
International support for the boycott is growing. Yesterday as reported on this blog the Sydney Biennale artists presented a petition to the Board of the Directors calling on them to sever ties with Transfield and asking for a reply by the end of the week. A reply is expected by the end of today.
The statement from the Liberate Tate site is reposted in full here:
LIBERATE THE TATE: STATEMENT OF SUPPORT FOR THE ARTISTS’ GROUP BOYCOTT THE SYDNEY BIENNALE – END TRANSFIELD SPONSORSHIP
Liberate Tate calls for the Sydney Biennale to withdraw from the current sponsorship it receives from the Transfield Foundation, and we support the challenging of unethical sponsorship by the group Boycott the Sydney Biennale and the Biennale artists who have added their names to the open letter to the board. While artists prepare their works for the fabulous event that is the Biennale, Transfield are profiting from incarcerating asylum seekers in offshore detention centres. As freedom is an essential element of artistic practice, it is ill-fitting for an arts event to associate itself with this company.
The mandatory detention of asylum-seekers has always been subject to powerful criticism from anti-racist campaigners and human rights advocates. Liberate Tate agrees with these critiques as it is our understanding that it is not a crime to seek peace and liberty. The Transfield-operated detention centre on Manus Island has come under particular criticism this week in light of the death of 23 year old Kurdish asylum-seeker Reza Berati. Thinking of the many refugee artists who have been able to practice and make work only by finding asylum and continuing to work in exile – Lucien Freud, Paul Klee, Wassilly Kandisky, Max Ernst, Marc Chagall, Anish Kapoor, Mona Hatoum, the list goes on – is it not a disrespect to their memory, story and experience for the Sydney Biennale to accept funds from a sponsor currently engaged in the incarceration of exiled people?
Liberate Tate’s artworks challenge Tate’s association with BP because we feel the company’s global impacts are a stain on the collection, and the presence of BP limits creativity in how visitors engage with art at Tate, and in how audiences imagine a world without the devastating impacts of oil. As artists we refuse to give BP or Transfield the social licence to continue their destructive operations by associating themselves with the arts.
https://liberatetate.wordpress.com/2014/02/20/statement-of-support-for-the-artists-group-boycott-the-sydney-biennale-end-transfield-sponsorship/
Friday 21 February 2014
Thursday 20 February 2014
Biennale Artists Call to Cut Ties With Transfield Sponsorship
Biennale Artists Call to Cut Ties With Transfield Sponsorship
By Ruth Skilbeck 20.2.2014
A group of prominent Sydney Biennale international artists has written a
collective letter to the Board of Directors calling on the Board to cut sponsorship
ties with Transfield, following the recent announcements that the Biennale
major sponsor has lucrative new contracts for welfare and garrison services to asylum
seeker mandatory detention camps, that are in breach of human rights. Earlier
this week, a man was killed in one of these camps, and 70 injured, as shots
were fired in attacks on asylum seekers, the latest incident in a stream of
news of cruel practices against asylum seekers in the camps on Manus Island and
Nauru that include unaccompanied children, women, families, and single men.
The artists letter of petition states: " We appeal to you to work
alongside us to send a message to Transfield, and in turn the Australian
Government and the public: 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
organisation, we do not want to be associated with these practices."
They
resist the use of their art to “add value” and “cultural capital” to the image
of a company that is profiting from social injustice.
The
letter adds: “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. We expect the Biennale to acknowledge the
voice of its audience and the artist community that is calling on the
institution to act powerfully and immediately for justice by cutting its ties
with Transfield.”
The artists letter will be presented to the Board when they meet later
today, it calls for the Board to take action as a matter or urgency and to give
a response by the end of the week, due to the imminent opening of the Biennale,
in March, the situation is now urgent. The artists petition the Board to
take leadership on this ethical matter, which has wider implications in the
light of the increasing reliance of public institutions on private funding, and
the ethical issues this poses.
The letter states: “we regard our role in the Biennale, under the
current sponsorship arrangements, as adding value to the Transfield brand.
Participation is an active endorsement, providing cultural capital for
Transfield.”
All the artist signatories are participants in the 19th Biennale of
Sydney, and come from Australia and countries around the world, united in their
antipathy and refusal for their art to be used to add value and cultural
capital to companies profiting in the immoral business in human suffering caused
by Australia’s policies of mandatory detention of asylum seekers.
An open letter to the Board of Directors, Biennale of Sydney
19
February 2014 To the Board of Directors of the Biennale of Sydney,
We
are a group of artists Gabrielle de Vietri, Bianca Hester, Charlie Sofo,
Nathan Gray, Deborah Kelly, Matt Hinkley, Benjamin Armstrong, Libia Castro,
Ólafur Ólafsson, Sasha Huber, Sonia Leber, David Chesworth, Daniel McKewen,
Angelica Mesiti, Ahmet Öğüt, Meriç Algün Ringborg, Joseph Griffiths, Sol
Archer, Tamas Kaszas, Krisztina Erdei, Nathan Coley, Corin Sworn, Ross Manning,
Martin Boyce, Callum Morton, Emily Roysdon, Søren Thilo Funder, Mikhail Karikis
all participants in the 19th Biennale of Sydney.
We
are writing to you about our concerns with the Biennale’s sponsorship
arrangement with Transfield.1
We
would like to begin with an affirmation and recognition of the Biennale staff,
other sponsors and donors, and our fellow artists. We maintain the utmost
respect for Juliana Engberg’s artistic vision and acknowledge the support and
energy that the Biennale staff have put into the creation of our projects and
this exhibition. We acknowledge that this issue places the Biennale team in a
difficult situation.
However,
we want to emphasise that this issue has presented us with an opportunity to
become aware of, and to acknowledge, responsibility for our own participation
in a chain of connections that links to human suffering; in this case, that is
caused by Australia’s policy of mandatory detention.
We
trust that you understand the implications of Transfield’s recent move to
secure new contracts to take over garrison and welfare services in Australia’s
offshore immigration detention centres on Manus Island and in Nauru.
We
appeal to you to work alongside us to send a message to Transfield, and in turn
the Australian Government and the public: that 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 organisation, we do not want to be associated with these practices.
Our
current circumstances are complex: public institutions are increasingly reliant
on private finance, and less on public funding, and this can create ongoing
difficulties. We are aware of these complexities and do not believe that there
is one easy answer to the larger situation.
However, in this particular case, we regard our role in the
Biennale, under the current sponsorship arrangements, as adding value to the
Transfield brand. Participation is an active endorsement, providing cultural
capital for Transfield.
In
light of all this, we ask the Board: what will you do? We urge you to act in
the interests of asylum seekers. As part of this we request the Biennale
withdraw from the current sponsorship arrangements with Transfield and seek to
develop new ones. This will set an important precedent for Australian and
international arts institutions, compelling them to exercise a greater degree
of ethical awareness and transparency regarding their funding sources. We are
asking you, respectfully, to respond with urgency.
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. We expect the Biennale to acknowledge the voice of its
audience and the artist community that is calling on the institution to act
powerfully and immediately for justice by cutting its ties with Transfield.
We
believe that artists and artworkers can—and should—create an environment that
empowers individuals and groups to act on conscience, opening up other pathways
to develop more sustainable, and in turn sustaining, forms of cultural
production.
We
want to extend this discussion to a range of people and organisations, in order
to bring to light the various forces shaping our current situation, and to work
towards imagining other possibilities into being. In our current political
circumstances we believe this to be one of the most crucial challenges that we
are compelled to engage with, and we invite you into this process of
engagement.
We
look forward to hearing your response and given the urgency of this issue, hope
that we can receive it by the end of this week.
Thank
you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Gabrielle
de Vietri, Bianca Hester, Charlie Sofo, Nathan Gray, Deborah Kelly, Matt
Hinkley, Benjamin Armstrong, Libia Castro, Ólafur Ólafsson, Sasha Huber, Sonia
Leber, David Chesworth, Daniel McKewen, Angelica Mesiti, Ahmet Öğüt, Meriç
Algün Ringborg, Joseph Griffiths, Sol Archer, Tamas Kaszas, Krisztina Erdei,
Nathan Coley, Corin Sworn, Ross Manning, Martin Boyce, Callum Morton, Emily
Roysdon, Søren Thilo Funder, Mikhail Karikis
NOTES
1. Please
note that in this document we use the name Transfield to refer to three
branches of the Transfield brand: Transfield Holdings, Services and Foundation.
Please refer to our information sheet for our understanding of how these are
linked.
Tuesday 18 February 2014
Boycott of Sydney Biennale - Artists Speak Out
Artists working with these themes
18.2.2014 By Ruth Skilbeck
Artists Against Unethical Sponsorship
Amongst artists working with the themes of
refugee detention and the Australian policies of prison islands, and protests
against unethical sponsorship by sponsors who are also profiting from running
“Prison Island” concentration camps for asylum seekers, are artists in
Australia. Individuals and groups are calling for boycotting of the Biennale.
These include the groups of artists who have also been imprisoned in detention
concentration camps.
Here is an excerpt from the group RISE,
RISE
supports a complete boycott of the 19th Sydney Biennale as Transfield, a major
sponsor and partner of this event, receives income from the operation of
Australia’s deadly offshore internment camps for refugees and asylum seekers.
In 2012, Australian Artist Van Thanh Rudd
first called for a boycott of the 18th Sydney Biennale when Transfield Services
won a $24.5 million Australian government contract to provide facilities in the
Nauru asylum seeker detention camp.
Transfield’s income from
these operations (as of February 2014) is over 300 million dollars, and they
have now won yet another contract to run “welfare services” on both Nauru and
Manus Island. At the same time, there are shocking reports of
mistreatment and abuse in these camps including eyewitness accounts from
medical staff, welfare officers and other former detention staff (as reported
on this blog).
Since Sunday Feb 16 there
have been shocking reports circulating in social media about atrocities on
Manus Island, attacks on asylum seekers, resulting in broken limbs, and other
serious injuries. Today Tuesday Feb 18 the mainstream media reports in the Guardian
have reported a confirmed death, confirmed by Scott Morrison liberal minister
for Immigration, serious injuries to 70 other asylum prisoners on the island,
and latest reports in breaking news in the Guardian, indicate that the atrocities
were started by attacks on the imprisoned asylum seekers.
Some creative ideas on ways artists and art supporters can deal
with the moral dilemmas of whether or not to accept funding, and how to deal
with unethical sponsors, from Platform London:
Culture Beyond Oil
Ideas are welcome. If you have creative ideas on how to deal
with unethical arts sponsorship, please send them in.
Artists are not slaves or prostitutes, and we do not need to
accept dirty money. That said we support slaves and prostitutes in gaining
emancipation from your oppressors. End the Rule of Dirty Money, which is
destroying the world.
Ruth Skilbeck
Off the Road with Ruth Skilbeck: a Diary of Boycotting the Sydney Biennale 2014
Off the Road with Ruth Skilbeck
The Diary of an Art Critic and Boycotter of
the Biennale of Sydney sponsored by the profits of imprisonment and torture of
asylum seekers, on Australia’s Pacific prison islands, Manus and Nauru.
I will be diarising my boycott of the Sydney Biennale 2014 on this website over the coming months.
Please join me, for an ethical and creative new alternative that puts Art and Artists before Money and Sponsorship before Corporate Greed.
I will be writing about those brave artists who are boycotting the Biennale from their moral principles, the ones who stand up and say No, they will not accept that Australia is the fascistic state that the current - dubiously elected- current "Liberal" (conservative- fascistic) political regime is implementing, we are more than this, we are Human, with souls, and a need to freely express ourselves.
Over the past few decades a war has been waged, on artists, on free thinkers, on the individual.
We resist that.
There may not be photos of me in cafes, but there will be photographs of art, and articles and reviews of artists and their works and this journey off the beaten track shall be published as a book later this year.
Ruth Skilbeck 18.2. 2014
Art in the Time of Corporate Greed, by Ruth Skilbeck
Art in the Time of Corporate Greed
Cultural Tourism, Sponsorship Ethics, and
the Sydney Biennale Boycott 2014
By Ruth Skilbeck 18.2.2014
Multinationals, national art prizes, national
identities, global capitalism…
Property development (intellectual and real
estate), universities (as real estate, property development opportunities, new
building, student accommodation, international student fees), education, banks,
financial institutions, telcos, defence, and now asylum seeker detention camps,
prisons which are in breach of international human rights, for torture, this
money being used to quell (potential) dissent in the art world, and society and
culture, by syphoning it into sponsorship of artists in Australia, who are kept
in a state of penury, so they will have to take whatever support and
sponsorship they can get, as, the idea is, they need it to survive. The idea
also is that they need the grants from these sources, as tokens of their
“success” as artists. There is an attempt to build a prestige around
sponsorship from these dubious sources. What calculating machine-minds thought
of that? The new captains of Academia, Australian big businesses, who are the
fascistic industrialists of yesterday, and the new global order, who have taken
over the universities, and are attempting to take over and imprison the art
world.
The “universities” are assisting (following
the new orders of the new captains in control) by erasing critical thinking
from the curriculum, and cultural history of colonialism. By ending tenure
track jobs and making all academics, or new academics, as many as possible,
casual, so they are all in a state of financial need, and have to keep working
in a system which they despise, as it is oppressing them, (not allowing them a
secure future, just as refugees are only granted a ‘temporary protection visa’
this operates in the same way of controlling and oppressing) and at the same
time, the “universities” (or a small group of people who have seized control of
the universities) are spending billions
on building new buildings, instead of paying the teachers, lecturers, they are
making a fortune from property development on campuses, building student
accommodation, which is rented out at high prices to the international students
whose fees are exorbitant.
Sydney Biennale has become a showcase of
cultural tourism and image massage, for the elites, sponsors, big business, and
government. This is happening at the same time, in the same era, that art
funding has been cut and art courses axed from tertiary education, across NSW;
and that artists individually and collectively are kept in a state of
impoverishment and penury, dependent on the handouts and “support” of the corporations
and institutional “education” culture that oppresses them.
A new book of independent scholarship and
art criticism on the history of the sponsorship of the Sydney Biennale, in
international contexts of the rise of art philanthropy, corporate sponsorship,
and cultural tourism in the global era (the past 40 years): working title Art in the Time of Corporate Greed by
Ruth Skilbeck, will be published by Postmistress Press.
Ruth Skilbeck, PhD, is a widely published
art and culture researcher and author, she has worked as an art critic, arts
journalist, university lecturer and researcher, and is co author of Cultural Landscapes of Tourism in New South
Wales and Victoria (Cooperative Research Centre 2008) a multi-university
research study, for which she was author of a case study on the Art Gallery of
New South Wales, she has also published many articles on arts related issues in
international scholarly journals, and in the mainstream arts media, in
Australia, the UK and Ireland.
Art in a Time of Corporate Sponsorship and
Greed:
A History of the Biennale of Sydney
Introduction
History
Broad historical overview of sponsorship of
art
Case studies
Sydney Biennale- 41 years from Beginnings
in 1973 to the Boycott 2014
art prizes
Artists working with these themes
Coming soon on this website.