The New Dark Age

Sunday, 21 April 2024

In December you were among the more than 1000 artists who announced their refusal to engage with Bristol’s Arnolfini until the arts centre took reparative action over the censorship of two cultural events programmed by Bristol Palestine Film Festival in November 2023. Today we are writing to thank you for making this campaign possible and to bring you up to date.

The open letter and call to boycott was positively covered in the arts press, including here and here. Two publishers then joined the boycott, saying they would not supply any of their titles to the Arnolfini bookshop. A Bristol artist was interviewed about the campaign here: ‘Speaking is a political act’: Bristol artists push Arnolfini for action over Palestine controversy.

In January Arnolfini broke its silence and put out a statement, though it failed to use the word ‘Palestine’ and suggested the problem was one of ‘communication processes’.

In March several artists withdrew their work from the Arnolfini’s iteration of the touring exhibition ‘Acts of Creation: On Art and Motherhood’ in solidarity with the campaign.

Months after our call for accountability and meaningful engagement, Arnolfini got in touch with Bristol artists and with the Bristol Palestine Film Festival to propose a mediation process.

This campaign has been led by arts workers in Bristol. Here is an update from Bristol Artists for Palestine for everyone who has supported the protests.

Hello!

This is a message from the Bristol Artists for Palestine working group.

We have recently been in the process of entering mediation with Arnolfini, alongside Bristol Palestine Film Festival and Raise The Bar, which is taking some time to begin. We have agreed to pause direct action (sit-ins and protests at the venue) whilst this mediation takes place.

We are working to build trust in the mediation process. We hope that Arnolfini will respond well to the shared demands of Bristol Palestine Film Festival and ourselves, and that Arnolfini will act to restore trust.

During this time, we will continue to use instagram to publicly raise awareness of financial ties with the genocide, and censorship taking place in other cultural venues (such as at HOME Manchester and London’s Barbican Centre).

Our position remains to boycott Arnolfini until this issue is resolved. We welcome artists withdrawing their work from Arnolfini in solidarity but will not pressure any artist in their individual decision making.

Solidarity 🇵🇸

To contact the BA4P working group directly: bristolartistsforpalestine@gmail.com
On IG: @bristolartistsforpalestine