Five Artists Just Boycotted The Biennale Of Sydney, Over Its Sponsorship Ties To Mandatory Detention
Their letter of withdrawal was posted online this morning.
Last week, close to a third of the artists booked for the 19th Biennale of Sydney signed an open letter encouraging the event to cut its sponsorship ties with Transfield, the company responsible for providing operational, maintenance and welfare support at Australian government detention centres on Nauru, and now at Manus Island, which they’ve recently taken over from G4S. “We will not accept the mandatory detention of asylum seekers, because it is ethically indefensible and in breach of human rights,” they wrote. “As a network of artists, arts workers and a leading cultural organisation, we do not want to be associated with these practices.”
Although not all artists threatened to boycott should the event continue to take money from the company, which made $302 million from Nauru in the last financial year, a spokesperson for the group, Gabrielle de Vietri, said that “some artists are reconsidering their participation”.
As of this morning, five of those artists — Libia Castro, Ólafur Ólafsson, Charlie Sofo, Ahmet Öğüt and de Vietri herself — have taken the next step, posting their statement of withdrawal to the Biennale’s Blogspot. “We have received indications from the Board of the Biennale and Transfield that there will be no movement on their involvement in this issue,” they write. “In our letter to the Board we asked for action and engagement, but we are told that the issue is too complex, and that the financial agreements are too important to re-negotiate.”
“We have revoked our works, cancelled our public events and relinquished our artists’ fees,” the statement continues. “While we have sought ways to address our strong opposition to Australia’s mandatory detention policy as participants of the Biennale, we have decided that withdrawal is our most constructive choice. We do not accept the platform that Transfield provides via the Biennale for critique. We see our participation in the Biennale as an active link in a chain of associations that leads to the abuse of human rights. For us, this is undeniable and indefensible.”
The group allude to “a multiplicity” of other forms of action that will unfold in the lead-up to and during the Biennale of Sydney. “We do not propose to know the exact ethical, strategic or effective action to end mandatory detention, but we act on conscience and we act with hope.”
When speaking to Junkee today, de Vietri praised the organisation for their support. “We let the artistic director [Juliana Engberg] know a few days ago. We had been cancelling orders and freight; they knew something was happening,” she says. “When we told her, we received her support and her understanding, and her expression of sadness that the works aren’t going to be in the show.” The Biennale of Sydney are yet to release an official statement.
Read the full letter on the BoS blog, or below.
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Statement of Withdrawal from 19th Biennale of Syndey
26 February 2014
We are five of the 41 artists – Libia Castro, Ólafur Ólafsson, Charlie Sofo, Gabrielle de Vietri and Ahmet Öğüt – who signed a letter to the Board of the Biennale of Sydney in relation to their founding sponsor, Transfield.
We make this statement in light of Transfield’s expanding management of Manus Island and Nauru immigration detention centres. We act in the wake of the death of Reza Berati from inside Manus Island detention centre on February 17. We are in urgent political circumstances with a government that is stepping up their warfare on the world’s most vulnerable people daily.
We have received indications from the Board of the Biennale and Transfield that there will be no movement on their involvement in this issue. In our letter to the Board we asked for action and engagement, but we are told that the issue is too complex, and that the financial agreements are too important to re-negotiate.
And so we make this statement from a critical juncture of political urgency and artistic autonomy.
This is a statement of our withdrawal from the 19th Biennale of Sydney.
We have revoked our works, cancelled our public events and relinquished our artists’ fees. While we have sought ways to address our strong opposition to Australia’s mandatory detention policy as participants of the Biennale, we have decided that withdrawal is our most constructive choice. We do not accept the platform that Transfield provides via the Biennale for critique. We see our participation in the Biennale as an active link in a chain of associations that leads to the abuse of human rights. For us, this is undeniable and indefensible.
Our withdrawal is one action in a multiplicity of others, already enacted and soon to be carried out in and around the Biennale. We do not propose to know the exact ethical, strategic or effective action to end mandatory detention, but we act on conscience and we act with hope.
We have chosen to redirect our energies into multiple forms of action: discussions, workshops, publications, exhibitions and works that will continue to fuel this debate in the public sphere. In this, we stand with our local and international communities that are calling for the closure of Australia’s offshore detention facilities. We ask for their active support in keeping this issue at the forefront of our minds, in the warmest part of our hearts, in the most urgent of discussions and in the most bold of actions, until the detention centres on Manus Island and Nauru close.
We withdraw to send a message to the Biennale urging them, again, to act ethically and transparently. To send a message to Transfield that we will not add value to their brand and its inhumane enterprise. Finally, and most importantly, we withdraw to send a message to the Australian Government that we do not accept their unethical policy against asylum seekers.
We ask that the Biennale of Sydney acknowledge the absence of our work from the exhibition. As the Biennale has offered to provide a platform and support for our dissent, we request that our withdrawal be registered on the Biennale website and signposted at the physical site of our projects. In the pervasive silence that the Government enforces around this issue, we will not let this action be unnoticed.
We act in solidarity with all those who are working towards a better future for asylum seekers. We hope that others will join us.
Libia Castro
Ólafur Ólafsson
Charlie Sofo
Gabrielle de Vietri
Ahmet Öğüt
Contact: [email protected]
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Still not sure whether you should boycott too? Try our handy flowchart.