Artists boycott Bristol arts centre amid Palestine censorship backlash
Thousands of artists within the cultural sphere have signed their names to a recent open letter denouncing Bristol’s Arnolfini International Centre for Contemporary Arts. They allege the “censorship of Palestinian culture” following the cancellation of two events scheduled as part of the city’s Palestine Film Festival.
The signatories, among them Robert del Naja, Brian Eno, Juliet Stevenson, and Tai Shani, express their commitment to refrain from collaborating with the Arnolfini or participating in its events. They also encourage their colleagues in the field to support the boycott, citing “an alarming pattern of censorship and repression within the arts sector.”
This follows a cancelled screening of Farha in November, a story delving into the coming-of-age amid the Nakba — the upheaval that saw the displacement of numerous Palestinians during and after the 1948 Palestine war.
Directed by Jordanian-Palestinian filmmaker Darin J. Sallam, the screening was originally planned to include a subsequent Q&A session featuring Palestinian writer and physician Ghada Karmi at the Arnolfini.
The open letter has now been signed by over 2,300 cultural figures. In response, the institution released a statement the next day, citing its status as an arts charity that refrains from endorsing what might be seen as “construed” political activity.
“This had not been a serious concern in all the previous years that Arnolfini hosted the film festival,” the open letter states. “Nor had it been a problem with the many other exhibitions and public programs that the center hosted since its opening in 1961. 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’.”
The statement continued: “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.”
