Another Four Artists Withdraw from 19th Biennale of Sydney, on Ethical Grounds

Another Four Artists Withdraw from Biennale Sydney on Ethical Grounds

Today a further four artists have announced their 'boycott' of the Sydney Biennale by withdrawing their art from exhibition in the 19^th Biennale of Sydney, due to the funding of Transfield the multinational sponsor which is running Australia’s detention camps condemned for human rights abuses by the UN.

The latest four artists who have withdrawn their works in protest are: Agnieszka Polska, Sara van der Heide,  Nicoline van Harskamp and Nathan Gray.

This artist boycott follows the boycott of the first five artists announced last week (letter on this blog) in an open letter to the Biennale, stating that they would not allow their works to be used to endorse the profits of detention camps and to art-wash the image of an unethical corporate sponsor, Transfield. They have since made further statements and three of the boycotting artists spoke at a public lecture in Sydney last night, which I attended, and spoke with the boycotting artists afterwards (which I will write up and post here soon).

Some artists are using the term ‘withdrawal’ rather than boycott— but it is the same thing, Olafur Ólafsson, ex-Biennale artist from Iceland, said to me last night when I spoke with him after a public lecture in Sydney.

I will write more about that conversation soon.

Reproduced in full for the record, below, is the Open Letter by the four artists announcing their boycott, today and first published today on the Biennale Artists Working Group  website.

March 5th 2014

After much consideration we: Agnieszka Polska, Sara van der Heide, Nicoline van Harskamp and Nathan Gray, have decided to withdraw our works from the 19th Biennale of Sydney, because of its relation to Transfield, a company involved in the Australian government policy of mandatory detention.

Our motivations reflect those outlined in the statement issued by artists Ögüt, Castro, Ólafsson, Sofo and de Vietri on February 26th, added as a reference with this letter. They close their statement by expressing their hope that others will join them in “solidarity with all those who are working towards a better future for asylum seekers.” Our withdrawal is such an act of solidarity.

We have requested the Biennale that our withdrawal be registered on their website and signposted at the physical site of exhibition, so that this action will not be unnoticed.

With Regards,

Agnieszka Polska, Sara van der Heide,  Nicoline van Harskamp and Nathan Gray

Contact: 2014workinggroup@gmail.com

The first open letter from 46 Sydney Biennale artists in protest at the detention camps funding:

Open Letter to the Board of the Sydney Biennale From Participating Artists

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, Mikala Dwyer, Rosa Barba, Sara van der Heide, Henna-Riikka Halonen, Shannon Te Ao, Hadley+Maxwell, Ane Hjort Guttu, Yael Bartana, Emily Wardill, Agnieszka Polska, Bodil Furu, Eglė Budvytytė, Eva Rothschild, Annette Stav Johanssen, Synnøve G. Wetten, Tori Wrånes, Siri Hermansen, James Angus
- 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 have attached for your information, a document that outlines our understanding of the links between the Biennale, Transfield and Australia’s asylum seeker policy.

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 art-workers 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, Mikala Dwyer, Rosa Barba, Sara van der Heide, Henna-Riikka Halonen, Ane Hjort Guttu, Hadley+Maxwell, Shannon Te Ao, Yael Bartana, Emily Wardill, Agnieszka Polska, Bodil Furu, Eglė Budvytytė, Eva Rothschild, Annette Stav Johanssen, Synnøve G. Wetten, Tori Wrånes, Siri Hermansen, James Angus

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.

Ruth Skilbeck 5.3.2014

 Four More Artists Open Letter of 5 March announcing withdrawal,  posted for the first time on Biennale Artists Working Group blog.

Art Installer, Peter Nelson and Others Boycott the Sydney Biennale in Protest at Detention Camp Funds Ties

By Ruth Skilbeck 5.3.2014

Today Peter Nelson, artist and art installer, has posted an Open Letter on social media announcing the refusal to hang the exhibitions and install the installations of the 19th Biennale of Sydney on ethical grounds, as a protest at the funding ties to mandatory detention camps profits, by Transfield the major sponsor promoted by the Biennale, which is also seen to be endorsed by the artists and arts workers in the Biennale.
Peter Nelson, artist and Audio-Visual arts technician, who has only recently started a new position at the MCA has made the moral choice as an artist, to leave this position (which he valued highly) as he writes: "In my heart I knew that it would be impossible to return to the studio knowing that I had done nothing."
In protest at the unethical source of funding, implicated in human suffering and cruelty as shown in the reports in the mainstream media (and documented in posts on this blog), Peter is resigning from the 19th SydneyBiennale installation work, on principle and in the belief that protest by citizens in a democracy makes changes.

His letter is reproduced here in full:

Open letter from an arts worker and an artist:

5 March 2014 at 11:58

Dear friends,

Many of you might know that I work as an art installer and technician for a number of organisations in Sydney. A couple of weeks ago I was excited and humbled to be offered a position as an AV technician at the MCA. I have worked there for five days now, and it’s the sort of job and workplace where I actually look forward to going to work, both for the great people and the challenging tasks thrown at us (yes, that IS a projector pun).

All of the institutions I work for unanimously agree that they like to employ artists as technicians and installers — we are well-suited for the technical challenges and understand the nature and context of the artworks themselves.

It is as an artist that I have made this decision. The Arts are charged with reflecting and criticising society, but itis so rare that an issue of such political poignancy falls directly at the feetof the arts community. In my heart, I know that it would be impossible toreturn to the studio, knowing that when faced with a decision of direct relevance,I did nothing. 

This morning, I resigned from Biennale of Sydney installation work at both the MCA and ArtSpace. The relationship betweenthe Biennale and the punitive practice of Mandatory Detention is a context thatI feel I am unable to work within.

It upsets me that the people directly affected by this will be those who were good enough to offer me the work, andthose with whom I work alongside. This is a not a choice I had ever imaginedmyself making, but I thought this through from as many angles as I could, and kept returning to the same outcome. An arts community has to be credible, ithas to be about something. For me to equivocate and delay on a situation that Iknew in my heart to be wrong would make life as an artist feel empty and meaningless.

Yours truly,

Peter Nelson

www.peteracnelson.com

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Senator Lee Rhiannon Moves to Support Biennale Boycott and Protests over Ties to Detention Camps Profits

Ruth Skilbeck 4.3.2014

Australian Greens Party Senator Lee Rhiannon has spoken out in support of the Biennale artists withdrawal from the Sydney Biennale, and artists calls for the Biennale to end ties with Transfield on the grounds on their unethical detention camps profits.

This shows there is now support from politicians in response to the Biennale artists who have withdrawn in protest against Transfield's links to detention camp profit.

This is from Lee Rhiannon's facebook page:

Today I moved a motion in support of the Biennale of Sydney artists who are speaking out against Transfield's links to Australia’s cruel mandatory detention policies. The motion failed because Labor or the Coalition would not vote for it. Mandatory detention is cruel and devastating. I commend all those who are campaining to end these abbhorent practices.http://bit.ly/N0Dzsu

Art Installer, Diego Bonetto and Others Boycott the Sydney Biennale 2014 in Protest at Detention Camp profit sponsor

Ruth Skilbeck 4.3.2014

Art installers are the all important people behind the scenes who hang the exhibitions, and install the installations, and take it all down afterwards, without them there would not be the smooth transition from exhibitions that art galleries and museums depend on. So it is significant indeed that art installers, from the MCA (Museum of Contemporary Art) and the AGNSW (Art Gallery of New South Wales) have stated their intention- on social media, circulated on facebook and blogs- their intention to boycott the Biennale, by not installing the Biennale art.

Yesterday, artist and casual art installer, Diego Bonetto, posted an Open Letter to the MCA announcing this refusal to install the Biennale exhibitions on ethical grounds.

The open letter is published on Diego's facebook page. The letter in full reads:

Open Letter to the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney

3 March 2014

Hi guys, you know me. I have been working at the Museum for the past 12 years as a casual installer.

In this time, I have seen lots of things, lots of changes, lots of power struggles and heard endless amount of art gossip.

I am walking out of my job for this install.

It was all fine and dandy as we were taking down Yoko Ono, but then when we started working on installing the next exhibition, the 19th Biennale of Sydney, my guts began to revolt.

We all know what's at stake here.

We all know that despite whatever we want to say to one another and the public, Transfield money is dirty money. Bloody money.

I am not inciting anyone into any action they do not want to do. I am not making a big fuss and/or painting slogans all over the walls. I respect the place, and most of all, I respect the people working within.

There are great mates at the MCA who have known me and what I do for a long time. They respect me and I respect them.

So this morning, I walked in, I stated my intentions and continued to help the crew sort themselves out, as I did not want to leave them stranded.

Once sorted, I walked out, and I am not coming back to help with this bloody 19th Biennale of Sydney.

You are all intelligent people, you all know what's at stake

By all means, bring on the show, as we have done plenty before. But this time would be hard to ignore the reality of people sufferings.

This would actually be the time to send a clear message to the Australian government that its current asylum seeker policies are 'ethically indefensible and a breach of human rights'.

However you want to look at it, Luca Belgiorno-Nettis is directly implicated in this.

Some journalist the other day said that after talking to Luca he felt sorry for him.

So do I, I replied. I feel sorry for him, the Biennale and the MCA.

But I feel way more sorry for the innocent people locked up on an island off the coast of Australia.

With all due respect

Diego Bonetto

BIENNALE BOYCOTT- ART CRITIC DIARY

BIENNALE BOYCOTT-ART CRITIC DIARY: PROTEST FROM WITHOUT V. PROTEST FROM WITHIN

By Ruth Skilbeck 4.3.2014

This year I will not be on the boat of media arts writers, critics and journalists to Cockatoo Island, a main exhibition site of the Sydney Biennale and one time convict prison in Sydney Harbor. Since 2003 when I started Arts Features International I have accepted media preview invites, and have always before enjoyed the full day of previewing the international contemporary art spectacular, which over the years has become bigger and more spectacular, especially since expanding to Cockatoo Island, a few years ago. But this year I will not be on the bus, and ferry circuit, hurrying between the MCA, AGNSW, Carriageworks, and Artspace; viewing the works and able to interview and photograph artists from around the world.

 I have made the decision to boycott the Sydney Biennale 2014, and instead, I will write about the art and ideas of the group of prominent international Biennale artists, who are boycotting the Biennale in ethical protest about the source of sponsorship from detention industry profits by Transfiel

The group of international and Australian artists who have withdrawn form the Biennale are: Libia Castro, Ólafur Ólafsson, Charlie Sofo, Gabrielle de Vietri and Ahmet Öğüt.  They announced their decision to withdraw in an open letter to the Biennale Board. http://19boswg.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/statement-of-withdrawal-from-19th.html.

The artists announced their decision to withdraw from the Biennale after signing an open letter (a total of 45 artists out of the 92 Biennale artists) requesting the Biennale cut ties with Transfield, the Biennale sponsor, promoted by the Biennale. http://19boswg.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/open-letter-to-board-of-sydney-biennale.html

The Biennale artists posted this with a press release on the #19BoS Biennale Working Group blog they started for this purpose: “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.” http://19boswg.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/press-release-artists-working-group.html.

Included in their posts of Thursday 20 Feb an information sheet on the ties between Transfield, the Biennale of Sydney and Australia’s Asylum Seeker Policy, outlined the connections between these, and the reasons for the artist concern. Resulting in their call for the Board to sever these unethical ties. http://19boswg.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/transfield-biennale-of-sydney-and.html.

The Biennale Board responded with an open letter stating that “without Transfield there would be no Biennale”, and that they would do nothing.

http://19boswg.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/open-letter-to-board-of-sydney-biennale.html.

The five Biennale artists who have withdrawn, act in protest at the source of funding from Transfield, Biennale sponsor and construction company, which has last week increased its now 1.2 billion dollar contract to provide “welfare” services to Australia’s offshore refugee and asylum seeker detention (internment) camps, which have been condemned by witnesses and former workers there as “concentration camps”. Transfield has now taken over all the services for the detention camps on Manus Island and Narua. (And I will also be writing about other arts events in Sydney between March and June, the span of the Biennale).

The decision by the boycotting artists was in response to the much-reported horror of the detention camps—despite the government media blackout (“We forbid reportage. We censor news."

Elizabeth Farrelly, SMH 27 Feb 14.)

Just under two weeks ago, a 23-year-old man Reza Barati was murdered in the mandatory detention refugee camp on Manus Island on 17 February. Reportedly he was hit in the head repeatedly with a wood object, in a protest when security staff, and machete wielding locals attacked the refugees. The protest occurred after they were driven to despair and some expressed their in protest following a meeting with a PNG official on Sunday afternoon. After leading the refugees to believe otherwise, officials had confirmed that they could not be settled in PNG, following their being told they cannot go to Australia, despite Australia being a signatory to the international Refugee Convention (which states that Australia will resettle asylum seekers who met the criteria of refugees; and that anyone who has reason to flee their homeland for fear of death on political and environmental grounds if they stay there, is a legitimate asylum seeker.

"Article 31 of the UN Refugee Convention - which we naturally signed - forbids host countries from penalising refugees who declare themselves and show cause. Articles 32 and 33 forbid their expulsion or refoulement to any place of endangerment through race, religion or belief.

Article 26 requires the host to allow free movement. Articles 27 and 28 require provision of identity and travel documents. Other articles require the same rights to education, housing, employment, artistic freedom, social security and ''sympathetic consideration'' as accorded to nationals. Article 16 requires free access to courts of law.”- Elizabeth Farrelly, SMH 27 Feb

The horrific facts, of the murder, and attacks, are now on record, and confirmed, and have been repeatedly questioned and discussed, in Australian social media, where the reports and news first emerged, then mainstream media, and finally in the Australian parliament, where there are now calls for a royal commission, and for the resignation of minister, Scott Morrison, who gave misleading reports for several days, which hid the truth.

 

It was in response to this— to the reports of the death of Reza Barati and the serious injuries to many other asylum seekers in the attacks on them with rocks, wooden sticks, and machetes, as well as shots fired by attackers inside the enclosure of the detention refugee camp which is already being run by Transfield— the group of artists put out their public statement on Thursday Feb announcing their withdrawal from the Sydney Biennale (which opens on 21 March) in protest at the Biennale funding from the detention camp profits.

The Biennale artists protest began after the announcements that Transfield was taking over welfare service as well as garrison services to the detention centres. Tranfield has been providing services to the detention camps for the past two years, during which time there have been numerous reports (as documented on this blog) about the inhumane and illegal conditions. Most of the artists, and probably all the international artists, had not known of this link of the sponsors, prior to the news, and the call to boycott the Biennale that was put out in an open letter on a website, by citizen and academic Matthew Kiem, February 6 just under a month ago.    

Prior to the call to Boycott in early February there had been an earlier call to boycott the Biennale, made in 2012, at the end of the last Biennale, by Van T Rudd, artist, after the announcement by a prominent Transfield director, in a talk at the Biennale (cite) that the company was taking on services in the detention industry. However, the majority if not all the prominent international Biennale artists did not know about this, as they state, of their lack of knowledge and the lack of information given to them, that they document in their open letter: (quote)

So when the call to boycott the Biennale came in February, on the grounds of the increasing funding from the detention camps, this took the prominent international Biennale artists by surprise, and prompted much discussion over what they should do in response, to news that many found deeply ethically abhorrent.

 As open letters stating objections, and protest, began to appear on public blogs and online sites (which is the form and place in which this early debate and discussion has so far played out), the prominent international Biennale artists were put into a position where they felt they had to act, and state their views, and ethical position, on the news of the sponsorship funding from detention camp profit. They started up a blog in which to discuss publicly their views.

The debate is now escalating on social media and has been picked up in the mainstream media.

Meanwhile artists who have withdrawn have gone about the practical business of removing their work, cancelling their flights, or returning to their home countries.

On Friday 29 Feb, artist Gabrielle de Vietri, removed from Cockatoo Island her large installation work that includes heavy planter boxes, and relocated the work in a new site not part of the Biennale. A rapidly requested team of helpers assisted her, after she put out an urgent request through social media, and Facebook, asking for the assistance of  “burly men and women” to help her move her work from the island.

Although the artists have requested that the Biennale clearly indicate the absence of their works, in the place they would have been, so far this has not happened. In the brochure, online, of the Biennale, for example an article on the Sydney Biennale blog (not to be confused with the Biennale Artists blog) last week advertised the works of prominent artist team Olafur Olaffson and Libia Castro and that suggests they were part of the exhibition still. These are two of the artists who have withdrawn their work from the Biennale, to protest the sponsorship funding by detention camp profits. Their works are not on display.

 Ahmet Öğüt  representing Turkey is another artist who has withdrawn his work from the Biennal in protest. He wrote an article on why he has withdrawn his work from the Sydney Biennale, published yesterday. In his open letter he says:

“What I see here is a lack of ethical transparency; a last-minute call from an Australian citizen to boycott; a Biennale team and board that has known of its sponsor’s engagements for a very long time; invited artists left uninformed; as sponsor, Transfield Holdings without a clear distinction from Transfield Services, who is very well aware that their business decision as a major contractor on the highly criticized refugee detention camps at Manus Island and in Nauru is ethically indefensible; and the implications of this both on the cultural scene, and on the broader discussion of Australian citizens demanding an urgent change of policy from the Australian Government.”

Ahmet Öğüt, 26/2/14. http://xborderoperationalmatters.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/ogut-biennale

Charlie Sofo has also withdrawn his work from the 19^th Biennale of Sydney. His work will now not be on display at the Biennale as he is protesting, against the sponsorship funding from detention camps.

The City of Sydney’s Clover Moore has publicly stated opposition to the funding, and to mandatory detention camps, as reported.

Yet the Biennale Board has chosen to retain its dubious link.

One of the complicating factors in what has been described as a “complex” situation which the Biennale curator, Juliana Engberg, said leaves her “between a rock and a hard place”  is that a director of Transfield and son of the founder of Transfield, is also the chairman of the Sydney Biennale, and the new Director of the board of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, as well as on the board of the Biennale. http://dailyreview.crikey.com.au/juliana-engberg-why-spectacular-need-not-be-dumb/.

And it was following the lecture by director Luca Belgiorno-Nettis at the end of the last Biennale that first began the calls for protest (watch the video of his lecture here); after this Van T Rudd (coincidentally nephew of the former PM) called for a boycott. There was an attempt to protest at the time within the Biennale, by local artists who were not Biennale artists, joined by activists from Occupy Sydney that was happening at that time.

Since then there has been unrest within some in the local arts community, over these sponsorship detention camp links, however there was no active call to boycott, and as previously shown, the prominent international Biennale artist did not have this information.

The prominent international artists at the Biennale became aware in early February of the controversy over the detention camp funding, and when the call to boycott was made public in a blog article, by academic Matthew  Kiem. There followed, on social media, an intense and passionate, and often aggressive volley of posts, or a campaign, aimed to intercept an actual boycott of the Biennale. One or two very loud voices, took up and amplified the directive of the Transfield directors, posted during this Facebook debate on the public Transfield website- to keep discussions and diverse opinions and views on “how to treat refugees” within the confines of the Biennale itself.

For a couple of weeks there was a noisy obfuscation, generated by the vocal self appointed spokespeople on Facebook, that sought to claim that the Biennale sponsor Transfield, was not really involved in the detention camp funding. It was this effort at denial, designed to stop a boycott, and the confusion that was generated through Facebook posts, in an aggressive and relentless attack on any who tried to point out otherwise, despite the research that some (including myself) had done into this (and the links to the evidence that clearly showed otherwise, in Transfield’s own website, and publicly available reports of their profits) that compelled the actual prominent international Biennale artists to conduct their own research, into the sponsorship links. I personally witnessed and was subjected to this bullying on Facebook.

Even when Transfield made this link clear by referring to the different components of the Transfield “brand” on the website, this still did not quell the efforts to undermine those who had done this research, and knew, and posted, the links. This did not seem to deter those (local artists) who were seemingly trying to stop a boycott. It did not stop the bullying of any who spoke out for the historic legitimacy of non-participation by art critics, and audiences, or withdrawal (in other words ‘boycott’), as a form of democratic protest, in a series of angry Facebook ‘status updates’ and comments ‘threads’. Mentioning, as I did, that it was due to the international boycott that stopped apartheid in South Africa, led to even further bullying, and even a comment, a few days later, in an article by Helen Razer, who cynically added that when she was young  activism led her to write: ‘I believe I thought I had stopped apartheid’.  http://dailyreview.crikey.com.au/sydney-biennale-artists-divide-over-dirty-money/.

Despite the evidence, the people in the noisy strident ‘anti-boycott’ campaign adhered to the line that ‘protest is more effective from within’ and that any other form of protest was a form of “bullying” and “wedging the artists”.

Meanwhile the actual Biennale artists had conducted and commissioned their own research and were making up their own minds as to what to do and what actions to take.

This led to their independent petition to the Board, and the subsequent boycott by five prominent international Biennale artists, who have withdrawn from the Sydney Biennale in protest. I am now in contact with two of these artists, although had not had any contact with any of the prominent international Biennale artists, prior to the withdrawal this week, of the five artists in boycott.

Meanwhile, the bullying and aggressive denials, and attacks on me, on Facebook, have ceased, as I have thankfully been “defriended” (twice) for daring to put the views, that “protest from within” in such a situation as this, whilst it may be a valid choice for people to make, is not in my view, going to be an ultimately effective response. And that boycotting is a legitimate form of protest.

The artists who decide to boycott show the most effective response. They are the ones who will be recorded as having the courage to stand up for what has become one of the most significant symbolic and political issues of this time of global capital, the attempts to colonize, “brand”, and corral freedom of expression, by capital and in this case art sponsorship by detention industry profits, where art is used, and can be visibly seen, to add value and cultural capital to the sponsor.

The five artists who are boycotting the Biennale refuse to let their art be used in this way to “add value” to the brand of a sponsor and patron promoted by the Biennale, whose detention industry profits they do not endorse.

For this I applaud their actions, and support their decision to boycott.

We can all learn from their ethical leadership, that there are some sacrifices that are worth making, and ethical causes that are worth standing up for, even in the art world which has been criticized in Australia for its cynicism and lack of effective social and political engagement. This year the actions of these Biennale artists show otherwise, that art does not have to be coopted by capital, and that art as a means of advancing our universal humanity, comes before money and there are some artists who will not sell-out.

The prominent international five who are boycotting the Biennale, are the artists who give us hope for humanity, and show that art is more than a spectacle, but a means of political and social and human engagement; and authentic ethical communication with humanity around the world. Art is what makes us feel and be our selves as human, with compassion, tolerance, and empathy for others that cannot have a price, let us keep it that way.

Ruth Skilbeck, March 1, 2014.