LONDON: More than 1,200 leading artists from the UK city of Bristol have written an open letter accusing the iconic Arnolfini International Center for Contemporary Arts of “censorship of Palestinian culture.”
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign said in a statement that “Portishead’s Geoff Barrow and Adrian Utley, Massive Attack’s Robert del Naja, writers Alice Oswald, Nikesh Shukla, Shon Faye, Travis Alabanza and Rachel Holmes are among many of Bristol’s artists” who wrote the letter “in response to Arnolfini’s cancelation of scheduled film and poetry events programmed by Bristol Palestine Film Festival.”
PSC added: “Leading Bristol artists, including Lawrence Hoo, Batu, Giant Swan, Tom Marshman and Verity Standen point to ‘an alarming pattern of censorship and repression within the arts sector,’ citing a series of recent cancelations and threats to artists advocating for Palestinian rights in Britain and beyond.”
The publicly funded arts center claimed that it canceled the film and poetry events because it “could not be confident that the events would not stray into political activity,” according to the letter.
But the center’s statement was widely derided when it appeared on Arnolfini’s Instagram account.
“This had not been a serious concern in all the previous years that Arnolfini hosted the film festival. Nor had it been a problem with the many other exhibitions and public programs that the center hosted since its opening in 1961,” the letter said.
“Important events on decolonization and Black Lives Matter, feminism and gender liberation, refugee and asylum seekers’ rights have all taken place without being seen to fall outside the venue’s ‘charitable purpose.’”
PSC said Arnolfini had organized numerous events with “overtly political themes,” including one hosted last year that opposed Russia’s war in Ukraine, with part of the ticket sales going to the Disasters Emergency Committee Ukraine.
“Hundreds of British and international artists including Brian Eno, writers Raymond Antrobus, Isabel Waidner, Lola Olufemi and Huw Lemmey, performance artist Colin Self and actor Juliet Stevenson joined Bristol artists in signing,” PSC said.
They stated in the letter that after the killing of more than 17,000 Palestinians in Gaza and the destruction of more than 100 heritage sites within two months, “to silence Palestinian voices and narratives at this exact moment is not merely a betrayal of the fundamental principles of pluralism and freedom in the arts, it is also inhumane.”
Visual artists Jasleen Kaur, Ben Rivers, Paul Purgas, Tai Shani, Jumana Manna and Erica Scourti said Britain’s hard-won legacy of freedom in the arts “cannot be allowed to fall prey to authoritarianism, racism and censorship … Anyone who cares about the democratic functioning of our cultural institutions should be deeply concerned.”
The artists vowed to take collective action and urged other artists, curators and audiences to join them, saying: “Until the Arnolfini leadership publicly commits to consistently uphold freedom of expression, with no exception for Palestine, and genuinely engages with Bristol’s arts community to rectify the harm it has caused, we must, reluctantly, refuse cooperation with the arts center and will not participate in any of its events.”
They added: “The signatories of this letter expect better integrity, transparency and cultural leadership from Arnolfini.”
A Bristol-organized open letter demanding a public explanation from the center for the cancelations has accumulated over 2,300 signatures.
