{"id":10673,"date":"2024-04-23T11:29:31","date_gmt":"2024-04-23T11:29:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/?p=10673"},"modified":"2024-04-23T11:30:09","modified_gmt":"2024-04-23T11:30:09","slug":"how-pro-palestine-artists-are-being-cancelled-by-uk-cultural-institutions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/how-pro-palestine-artists-are-being-cancelled-by-uk-cultural-institutions\/","title":{"rendered":"How pro-Palestine artists are being being cancelled by UK cultural institutions"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Katherine Hearst
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even before 7 October<\/a>, Taghrid Choucair-Vizoso, a Lebanese <\/a>cultural worker residing in the UK<\/a>, had been used to awkward questioning from arts venues when she pitched work about Palestine<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ve had very reductive questions from some venues when pitching Palestinian artists\u2019 work, which hasn’t happened when I’ve pitched other artists,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBefore even giving me a chance to talk about the work, I\u2019ve had questions about whether there was any balance by including an Israeli point of view, or if we foresaw any protests happening.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Choucair-Vizoso once had a project pulled for featuring the word “Palestine” in its title.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before October, these conversations tended to happen behind closed doors. However, since\u00a0Israel<\/a>\u2019s war on Gaza began, a slew of venues, including the\u00a0Arnolfini<\/a>\u00a0arts centre, the\u00a0Barbican<\/a>, and\u00a0Chickenshed\u00a0<\/a>theatre have publicly pulled events featuring Palestinian or pro-Palestinian artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In each case the venues issued statements citing security concerns or the “complexity” of the situation in Gaza.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Choucair-Vizoso, the speed and the scale of the censorship has intensified since October.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI haven\u2019t seen this happening before at this scale,\u201d she told Middle East Eye. \u201cIt\u2019s never been this public, and now during a genocide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It’s very hard, because my village in the south of Lebanon has been destroyed and I have to deal with this,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think there are so many [events] we don’t know about. Imagine all the work that didn’t even get to the programming stage.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A pattern of intimidation<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In March, HOME, a Manchester-based arts centre, announced<\/a> the cancellation of a Palestinian literature event, Voices of Resilience<\/a>, after the venue received a letter from the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester & Region claiming that a featured writer, Atef Abu Saif, was antisemitic and a Holocaust denier. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe venue was really supportive about it initially,\u201d the event co-producer and director, Dani Abulhawa, told MEE. \u201cWe have a couple of high-profile actors involved in the show, so it drew more attention than a smaller production might have done\u2026 it sold out almost immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The venue then told the organisers they began receiving \u201chundreds\u201d of complaints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were told initially that they were getting a lot of complaints about the use of the word ‘genocide’, which was in the copy for the show,\u201d Abulhawa said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The organisers reluctantly agreed to remove the word from the copy.\u00a0

https:\/\/twitter.com\/OnlinePalEng\/status\/1774174198585250289?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1774174198585250289%7Ctwgr%5E7e58e2c5a617005dd7b48c5a8e2f110689df3058%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.middleeasteye.net%2Fnews%2Fuk-palestinian-artists-report-increased-censorship-arts-institutions
<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, the venue then raised concerns about the title of a book by Abu Saif, Don’t Look Left: A Diary of Genocide<\/a>, <\/em>which they were planning to sell at the event to fundraise for charity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Abulhawa and her colleagues agreed not to sell the book at the event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, the venue confirmed it was dropping the event, when it received a draft of a newspaper article which accused its management of antisemitism, over fears that protests would disrupt the show.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cObviously, we were also concerned about safety\u2026 but we were extremely upset by these accusations because they’re completely baseless,\u201d Abulhawa said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement on its website, the venue cited security concerns and declared itself a \u201cpolitically neutral space\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Artists
Artists remove work from HOME’s exhibitions to protest at its cancellation of the Voices of Resilience event<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This was the same reasoning cited by Bristol\u2019s Arnolfini gallery when it cancelled<\/a> two Palestine Film Festival events in November, saying that, as an arts charity, it could not engage in anything that could be \u201cconstrued as political activity\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of HOME, the venue was forced to reinstate the event after over 300 theatremakers and cultural workers, <\/a>including Maxine Peake and Asif Kapadia, wrote an open letter<\/a> and 100 artists removed their work<\/a> from exhibitions at the venue in protest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Abulhawa, her experience with HOME was not an isolated incident, but \u201cpart of a pattern of intimidation”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPalestinian voices are being silenced in the process of venues responding with [often] kneejerk reactions to any accusations, without investigating them first,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A familiar script<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For Saeed Taji Farouky, a Palestinian-British filmmaker who has been campaigning against the silencing of Palestinian work by UK arts institutions, this pattern predates 7 October. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe hear the same bullshit over and over again, it follows a very familiar script,\u201d Farouky said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe event is planned, it’s marketed, you would start selling tickets in some cases. And then [the venue] receives a letter often [from] groups claiming to represent Jewish communities,\u201d Farouky told MEE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese letters will make really spurious claims of antisemitism, and in most cases, that’s enough to terrify the venue. And they cancel the show,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Farouky, the venues often cite security reasons for the cancellation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese are venues that have hosted events for Ukraine\u2026 about trans visibility,\u201d Farouky said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you are willing to stand up for these other issues, why is Palestine an exception?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Farouky, who has been campaigning on the issue for 30 years, the rate of event cancellations has intensified, echoing Choucair-Vizoso’s feeling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so much more blatant now,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAny of the groups that are working hard to suppress Palestinian voices have realised how effective their strategy is\u2026 the minute they see the word Palestine, they know that all they have to do is write a poorly worded email [and] they’ll pull the plug.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But according to Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour, the rates of censorship are hard to quantify, as many artists could be dropped before a programme is made public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s impossible to know about the cases where an artist was shortlisted for an event, but conveniently removed from the list to reduce the likelihood of political controversy,\u201d Sansour told MEE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow does one even start to assess the frequency of institutions deciding not<\/em> to take a chance on a Palestinian artist?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A chilling effect<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

In January, Arts Council England released new guidelines <\/a>warning organisations that \u201covertly political or activist statements\u201d could incur \u201creputational risk\u201d and breach funding agreements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following a fierce backlash<\/a>, the funding body was forced to revise the guidelines, clarifying that organisations would not be penalised for working with artists who make political statements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite the retraction, artists who spoke to MEE felt that the guidelines would have a chilling effect on venues, deterring them from featuring Palestinian work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

‘Where are the leaders of cultural institutions that are willing to stand up for themselves and our communities, and what’s morally right?’<\/p>\n\n\n\n

-Saeed Taji Farouky, filmmaker<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf you read it carefully, [organisations] still have to manage risk around artistic work that deals with \u2018controversial\u2019 issues or topics. What is deemed controversial and by whom?\u201d Choucair-Vizoso told MEE. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOrganisations could be disincentivised from putting on Palestinian work [because] it could be a lengthy, exhausting and traumatising process to go through,” she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Farouky, the venues he had negotiated with frequently cited fears over being reported to the Charity Commission or having their Arts Council funding revoked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe argument we always hear is: if we were to stand up for this case, we might risk our funding,\u201d Farouky told MEE.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhere are the leaders of cultural institutions that are willing to stand up for themselves and our communities, and what’s morally right, and what’s legally defensible?\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is not just a venue cancelling an event. I think the decisions we make now are going to reverberate for at least a generation [and influence] the cultural makeup of Britain.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Katherine Hearst Even before 7 October, Taghrid Choucair-Vizoso, a Lebanese cultural worker residing in the UK, had been used to awkward questioning from arts venues when she pitched work about Palestine. \u201cI\u2019ve had very reductive questions from some venues when pitching Palestinian artists\u2019 work, which hasn’t happened when I’ve pitched other artists,\u201d she said.  \u201cBefore even giving me a chance …<\/p>","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":10674,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,184,307],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10673","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-172","category-international-issues","category-main-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10673","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10673"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10673\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10676,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10673\/revisions\/10676"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10674"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10673"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10673"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ameforum.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10673"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}