tag:theconversation.com,2011:/us/topics/sydney-biennale-boycott-9340/articlesSydney Biennale boycott – The Conversation2022-01-06T03:56:48Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1743932022-01-06T03:56:48Z2022-01-06T03:56:48ZSydney Festival boycott: when arts organisations accept donations, there is always a price to pay<p>The Sydney Festival opens today under a cloud. Several artists and arts organisations have <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/escalating-boycott-over-israeli-embassy-funding-disrupts-23-shows-at-sydney-festival-20220105-p59lxz.html">withdrawn</a> from the festival over the Israeli Embassy’s sponsorship of the dance work Decadance, by Israeli choreographer Ohad Naharin.</p>
<p>The crazy thing is the value of the sponsorship in question. A$20,000 is very small in the context of the festival’s <a href="https://issuu.com/sydneyfestival/docs/annualreview-sf20_p1-60">overall budget</a>.</p>
<p>Why, then, did the festival accept the <a href="https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/stories/board-statement-4-jan-2022">funding agreement</a> for Decadance, given the overall size of its budget and the potential community reaction?</p>
<p>It’s true it is common, when a festival invites an arts performance from another country, for the country of origin to provide financial support for the project. They do this because they see an advantage for their culture to be presented internationally. </p>
<p>But critics have <a href="https://junkee.com/sydney-festival-israeli-embassy/318836">said</a> this particular funding arrangement “serves to artwash the Israeli regime’s violent control over the lives of Palestinians”.</p>
<p>This is not an isolated incident but part of a broader global debate around sources of arts funding. If an arts organisation accepts money from a donor, there is always a price to pay. It’s a question of how high the price is. </p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-biennale-transfield-and-the-value-of-boycott-24155">The Biennale, Transfield, and the value of boycott</a>
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<h2>Is a donation ever free?</h2>
<p>Arts organisations can sometimes demonstrate a strange naivety when asking for or accepting donations. It’s as though the gift is more precious than its actual monetary value. Certainly, government funders and bodies such as <a href="https://creativepartnerships.gov.au/">Creative Partnerships Australia</a> provide rewards such as matched funding to arts organisations for attracting private donations. </p>
<p>Ironically, too, there are expectations from governments that arts organisations must find outside funders, to justify receiving government support. A recent arts minister, George Brandis, <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/national/george-brandis-urges-penalty-for-arts-organisations-rejecting-corporate-sponsorship-20140314-34s2v.html">threatened</a> in 2014 that if arts organisations or artists rejected private donations, they should be banned from receiving any government grants.</p>
<p>On the other hand, the donor, in this case the Israeli Embassy, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2022/jan/04/sydney-festival-boycott-more-than-20-acts-withdraw-over-israeli-funding">insists</a> it’s not about politics but that</p>
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<p>culture is a bridge to coexistence, cooperation and rapprochement and should be left out of the political arena.</p>
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<p>But are there ever any “free” donations? And can we separate the “giver” from their brand or past actions?</p>
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<h2>A history of protest over arts sponsorship</h2>
<p>There was an <a href="https://theconversation.com/principles-or-pragmatism-does-it-matter-where-arts-sponsorship-comes-from-163430">outcry</a> at the 2014 Sydney Biennale about an art sponsor, Transfield, and its connection with offshore asylum seeker processing centres. That did not go well for either party, with both suffering negative press and eventually breaking ties.</p>
<p>In December 2021 the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York finally <a href="https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/ny-met-sackler-removal-opiods-20211209-yqcyjjvd65ce3egxwlt3arq6py-story.html#:%7E:text=NYC%20Metropolitan%20Museum%20of%20Art%20scrubs%20Sackler%20name%20over%20opioid%20ties,-By%20Leonard%20Greene&text=The%20big%20pharma%20family%20at,Mortimer%20Sackler%2C%20Dr.">removed the Sackler</a> name from seven of its exhibition spaces, given that family’s <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-12-17/us-judge-overturns-us4-5b-deal-shielding-sackler-family-from-opi/100710280">association</a> with producing the drug at the centre of the US opioid crisis, OxyContin.</p>
<p>The museum’s board seemingly took this action reluctantly, thanking the family for their gracious donations, despite the community havoc wrought by their drug. </p>
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<p>The Fringe World festival in Perth provoked an outcry in 2020 for insisting on accepting a large sponsorship from fossil fuel giant Woodside, and then later <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/dec/18/perths-fringe-festival-under-fire-for-gag-order-clause-in-artist-contracts#:%7E:text=1%20year%20old-,Perth's%20fringe%20festival%20under%20fire%20for,order'%20clause%20in%20artist%20contracts&text=Performers%20who%20spoke%20to%20Guardian,climate%20change%20to%20local%20politics.">stipulating</a> artists “not do any act or omit to do any act that would prejudice any of Fringe World’s sponsorship arrangements”.</p>
<h2>Artists put in a difficult position</h2>
<p>Artists are always desperately searching for money to make their art happen. </p>
<p>Yet it was the artists who stood up and withdrew their labour during the 2014 Sydney Biennale. It was the artists who protested the sponsorship of the Fringe World festival, and it is the artists again who are protesting and withdrawing their labour from the 2022 Sydney Festival. </p>
<p>When artists protest about the sources of arts funding, they are often framed as ungrateful brats rather than people standing up for their beliefs. </p>
<p>Artists are some of the poorest people in our community, and yet are prepared to forgo their limited income to support fellow artists from other countries – in this case Palestine. This is not meant as a criticism of artists from Israel, for example the dancers involved in Decadance, but a criticism of their government. </p>
<p>Arts organisations are not separate from life or politics. And arts and cultural practices more broadly are not independent of any political association or connections. Nations around the world use arts and culture to promote their views, or to project a more benign image of their culture. </p>
<p>It is true, as the Israeli Embassy <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/dec/24/arts-organisations-pull-out-sydney-festival-protest-israeli-embassy-sponsorship">states</a>, that arts and culture are a bridge for creating better cultural understanding.</p>
<p>But the protesters would argue that arts or cultural practices can be used cynically to drive a political or cultural agenda, hence the accusation of “<a href="https://www.sbs.com.au/news/performers-have-been-boycotting-this-month-s-sydney-festival-here-s-why/c419b014-a92f-427e-a76c-d46c73252538">artwashing</a>”.</p>
<p>So where does this leave the Sydney Festival? </p>
<p>So far, according to a <a href="https://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/stories/board-statement-4-jan-2022">statement</a>, the festival’s board has said it wishes to: </p>
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<p>affirm its respect for the right of all groups to protest and raise concerns […] All funding agreements for the current Festival – including for Decadance - will be honoured, and the performances will proceed. At the same time, the Board has also determined it will review its practices in relation to funding from foreign governments or related parties.</p>
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<p>But it may have been wiser if the board had been more careful about its funding arrangements. Arts organisations, like artists, must be vigilant about the contracts they enter into.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-should-value-the-biennale-protest-not-threaten-arts-funding-24333">We should value the Biennale protest, not threaten arts funding</a>
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<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo Caust has received funding from the Australia Council. She is a member of NAVA and the Arts Industry Council (SA).</span></em></p>Artists are some of the poorest people in our community, and yet are prepared to forgo their limited income to support fellow artists from other countries – in this case Palestine.Jo Caust, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow (Hon), School of Culture and Communication, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1634302021-06-29T19:54:26Z2021-06-29T19:54:26ZPrinciples or pragmatism: does it matter where arts sponsorship comes from?<p>Perth arts organisation ARTRAGE, which runs the annual Fringe World festival, last week announced it had accepted ongoing funding from the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2021/jun/24/they-are-not-wanted-activists-angry-over-perth-fringe-worlds-new-deal-with-mining-giant">mining company Woodside Petroleum</a>. </p>
<p>Local artists have long protested against Woodside’s position as a naming-rights sponsor of Fringe World. In response, the festival <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2020/dec/18/perths-fringe-festival-under-fire-for-gag-order-clause-in-artist-contracts">introduced a contract clause</a> artists claimed was an effective “gag order” to prevent them protesting the arrangement.</p>
<p>When that naming-rights partnership ended earlier this month, activists celebrated it as a win. But they now believe it was little more than a symbolic victory.</p>
<p>Speaking about the reworked sponsorship deal, ARTRAGE CEO <a href="https://fringeworld.com.au/news/artrage-woodside-enter-new-partnership">Sharon Burgess said</a>:</p>
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<p>we are excited to be embarking on a new phase of the partnership […] ARTRAGE is not in the business of making political statements or taking a stance on the subject; we will leave that up to our artists. </p>
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<p>From this statement, it seems artists are now welcome to protest about funding arrangements. But this is a no-win situation for the artists. If they participate in an event paid for by the mining company, they are acting as collaborators. If they decline to participate, they do not get to show their work. </p>
<p>This is a much bigger question than one festival and one sponsor. With climate change as an overarching global threat, should arts organisations take money from the companies that are part of the problem? </p>
<h2>Throwing good money after bad?</h2>
<p>Everyone in the arts is always short of money, and corporate sponsorship is often an important part of a company’s income mix. This money allows them to pay artists, reach broader audiences and keep creating new work.</p>
<p>For corporations, arts sponsorship is used to generate positive publicity. Companies want to demonstrate they are generous and socially responsible. Their profile is enhanced by the association.</p>
<p>Unsurprisingly, fossil fuel companies across the world are keen to support arts and cultural activity. Providing this support, they can appear to be part of the solution, rather than the creator of the problem.</p>
<p>Earlier this month there was a <a href="https://hyperallergic.com/658021/climate-activists-occupy-london-science-museum/">two-day protest</a> at London’s Science Museum against Shell’s sponsorship of an exhibition called Our Future Planet, looking at climate change solutions. The director of the museum, Ian Blatchford, defended the sponsorship, arguing Shell is helping in “finding solutions” through its engagement with the museum. </p>
<p>Similar protests have been held throughout the UK in recent years in relation to cultural support from BP. The <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/mar/11/bp-to-end-tate-sponsorship-climate-protests">Tate Museum</a>, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2019/oct/02/royal-shakespeare-company-to-end-bp-sponsorship-deal">Royal Shakespeare Company</a> and the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2016/apr/06/bp-ends-34-year-edinburgh-international-festival-sponsorship">Edinburgh Festival</a> have all determined they will no longer accept funding from BP.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-there-any-clean-money-left-to-fund-the-arts-24159">Is there any clean money left to fund the arts?</a>
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<p>The most infamous recent case in Australia remains the 2014 protests against the relationship between the <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-artists-boycott-the-sydney-biennale-over-transfield-links-23067">Sydney Biennale and Transfield</a>. At the time, Transfield was contracted to manage the offshore detention centres in Nauru and Manus Island. </p>
<p>After the protests, the festival broke ties with their sponsor.</p>
<p>In March that year, Malcolm Turnbull (then Minister for Communications) called the artists “<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/11/malcolm-turnbull-slams-biennales-vicious-ingratitude-to-transfield">viciously ungrateful</a>”, and George Brandis (then Minister for the Arts) requested the Australia Council <a href="https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/sydney-biennale-shame-risks-funding-says-george-brandis/news-story/28d6d9c2d7eeb4d1a3e18b0809fc9a83">craft a policy</a> saying arts organisations could “not unreasonably refuse private sector funding” on political grounds. </p>
<p>Brandis then removed $105 million from the Council in 2015.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-should-value-the-biennale-protest-not-threaten-arts-funding-24333">We should value the Biennale protest, not threaten arts funding</a>
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<h2>Whose festival is it?</h2>
<p>There are many examples in Australia of arts organisations accepting sponsorship from mining companies.</p>
<p>BHP is the principal sponsor of Tarnanthi at the Art Gallery of South Australia, an important festival of Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander art. Rio Tinto was the principal sponsor of a six-year project with the Art Gallery of Western Australia, Desert River Sea: Kimberley Art Then & Now. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408787/original/file-20210629-23-1njg7yo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="Tarnanthi information booth" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408787/original/file-20210629-23-1njg7yo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/408787/original/file-20210629-23-1njg7yo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408787/original/file-20210629-23-1njg7yo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408787/original/file-20210629-23-1njg7yo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408787/original/file-20210629-23-1njg7yo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408787/original/file-20210629-23-1njg7yo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/408787/original/file-20210629-23-1njg7yo.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Adelaide arts festival Tarnanthi is sponsored by BHP.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">PeterTea/Flickr</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/">CC BY-ND</a></span>
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<p>But mining companies have <a href="https://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/SOWIP/en/SOWIP_web.pdf">negatively impacted</a> the traditional lands of many First Nations groups around the world, as well as important Indigenous cultural sites, such as the <a href="https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-26/rio-tinto-blast-destroys-area-with-ancient-aboriginal-heritage/12286652">destruction of Juukan Gorge last year</a>.</p>
<p>Does sponsoring an Indigenous art exhibition assuage the guilt?</p>
<p>In the face of continued reduction of government contributions to the arts, Australian arts organisations have been under enormous pressure to attract both corporate sponsorship and private donations.</p>
<p>But there are many ethical dilemmas in accepting sponsorship. Being pragmatic — and accepting the money for immediate benefit — may not be wise in the long term. The brand of the arts organisation could from thereon be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/19/sackler-family-members-face-mass-litigation-criminal-investigations-over-opioids-crisis">associated</a> with the sponsor, which can cause long-term damage to the arts organisation — especially when there is a belief (founded or not) the sponsor can <a href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/2017/05/blight-at-the-museum">compromise the integrity</a> of the arts organisation.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/global-arts-scene-awash-with-big-oil-and-gas-sponsorship-25221">Global arts scene awash with big oil and gas sponsorship</a>
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<p>The size of the sponsorship can also often be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/culture/2015/mar/02/arts-corporate-sponsorship-tate-british-museum">relatively small</a> in comparison to the overall cost of mounting the event. The price of turning off artists and audiences may be a poor exchange. </p>
<p>Tobacco companies were once, too, big arts sponsors in Australia. When this sponsorship was banned as part of Australia’s anti-smoking campaign, it was replaced with a <a href="https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/from-the-archives-1987-victoria-to-ban-tobacco-sponsorship-in-sport-20191002-p52x0s.html">tobacco tax</a> used to buy public health advertising space in programs or on signage of impacted sporting and cultural events.</p>
<p>It is possible to be sympathetic to the conundrum arts organisations find themselves in: mining companies are among the richest in Australia, and are therefore among the most likely to be able to sponsor arts festivals and other arts activity. </p>
<p>Perhaps one should take the money and run, and see it as a fair exchange. But no-one should imagine the gift comes without a price.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/163430/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jo Caust has received funding from the Australia Council. She is a member of NAVA and the Arts Industry Council (SA). </span></em></p>Perth’s Fringe World is being critiqued, again, for accepting sponsorship from Woodside Petroleum.Jo Caust, Associate Professor and Principal Fellow (Hon), School of Culture and Communication, The University of MelbourneLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/246942014-03-22T00:22:29Z2014-03-22T00:22:29ZThe Biennale boycott blues<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44471/original/pv5j2g2r-1395447380.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Quentin Jones</span></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44471/original/pv5j2g2r-1395447380.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44471/original/pv5j2g2r-1395447380.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44471/original/pv5j2g2r-1395447380.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44471/original/pv5j2g2r-1395447380.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44471/original/pv5j2g2r-1395447380.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44471/original/pv5j2g2r-1395447380.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44471/original/pv5j2g2r-1395447380.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<p>The <a href="http://www.biennaleofsydney.com.au/">Sydney Biennale</a> has commenced after weeks of controversy over the severing of its relationship with Transfield, the company that runs the detention centre in Nauru and which will take over the one at Manus island.</p>
<p>To recap, several artists withdrew from the Biennale in protest over its sponsorship arrangement with Transfield due to the latter’s involvement in offshore detention of asylum-seekers. Activists also put pressure on the Biennale. The Biennale eventually severed ties with the company, and Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, whose father founded Transfield and also helped found the Biennale, stepped down as the Biennale chairman. </p>
<p>The federal government has since weighed in. Malcolm Turnbull described the actions of the boycotting artists as “vicious ingratitude” before Arts Minister George Brandis upped the ante considerably. Brandis has written to the Australia Council, the federal body in charge of arts funding, asking that it develop a policy to refuse federal funding to any arts body which “unreasonably” refuses private funding.</p>
<p>Phew! So … what to make of all this. Below are my thoughts on the Biennale boycott.</p>
<h2>Transfield and the corporate veil</h2>
<p>The private companies <a href="http://www.transfield.com.au/">Transfield Holdings</a> and the <a href="http://www.transfieldfoundation.org/">Transfield Foundation</a>, are not the same thing as the entity which runs and profits from offshore detention, the public company <a href="http://www.transfieldservices.com/">Transfield Services</a>. Luca Belgiorno Nettis is an <a href="http://www.transfield.com.au/luca-belgiorno-nettis-am">executive</a> of Transfield Holdings, the company his father founded decades ago.</p>
<p>Transfield Holdings owns 12% of Transfield Services. It is apparently the second biggest shareholder in the latter company. 12% is a very sizeable shareholding in any public company, so it is in a position, if it wishes, to exercise some level of control over the actions of the latter. It also benefits considerably when the latter’s share price rises. </p>
<p>The Transfield Foundation is a company which runs the philanthropic activities of both Transfield Holdings and Transfield Services. Its money, therefore, is clearly linked to the profits of Transfield Services.</p>
<p>Arguments about targeting the wrong entity within Transfield make sense from a legal point of view. In law, they are separate entities. But the legal fiction that corporations are separated by a corporate veil cannot automatically be translated into a social fiction. In any case, the name “Transfield” conveys a certain meaning to the public, most obviously the public company that runs the detention centres.</p>
<h2>Is Transfield Services doing anything wrong?</h2>
<p>Transfield Services has won contracts to run Australia’s offshore detention centres. Offshore processing is probably legal under Australian law. In fact, it is the policy of both major political parties. So, it is arguable that Transfield is not doing anything wrong, and any disapproval of its relationship to the Biennale is a misguided tantrum.</p>
<p>Modern social expectations dictate that <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/Business/RtRInterpretativeGuide.pdf">corporations have a responsibility to respect human rights</a>. Respect for human rights does not equate with “legality under a country’s domestic law”. Our offshore detention system breaches human rights. For a start, blanket automatic detention of asylum-seekers amounts to arbitrary detention in breach of Article 9 of the <a href="http://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/ccpr.aspx">International Covenant on Civil and Political rights</a>. </p>
<p>Evidence also indicates that offshore detention in Nauru and Manus is <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/national/asylum-seekers-nothing-to-lose-desperation-on-nauru-20140314-34s04.html">cruel</a>, in breach of both Articles 7 and 10. (The death of <a href="http://www.news.com.au/national/manus-island-riot-how-did-iranian-asylum-seeker-reza-berati-die/story-fncynjr2-1226839986356">Reza Berati</a> may indicate a breach of the right to life in Article 6, though that did not take place under Transfield’s watch).</p>
<p>So it is fair to link Transfield to human rights abuses. It has made a decision to get involved in a system of offshore arbitrary detention and will make considerable profits from that system. It is irrelevant that another company would have won the contract if Transfield had not. Nobody forced Transfield into its decision to bid for the contracts, and like any “person”, its decisions leave it open to consequences. </p>
<p>Here, the consequences for Transfield were the open condemnation of its activities by artists and others, as well as a great deal of publicity about its involvement in detention centres (which I suspect was not welcome).</p>
<h2>Is the boycott inconsistent?</h2>
<p>If Transfield can be targeted, other corporate sponsors might be targeted due to perceived wrongdoing. This argument assumes that many or even most corporations have skeletons in their closet, or even bright public skeletons that are apparent to anyone paying attention. And such an assumption is probably true, especially with multinational companies running multiple businesses in multiple sectors in multiple countries.</p>
<p>Brisbane’s <a href="http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/queensland/goma-denies-ending-santos-deal-20140320-355sq.html">Gallery of Modern Art</a> is currently being criticised for its association with Santos, due to the latter’s environmental record. So far, the Gallery is staunchly standing beside Santos. Having said that, offshore processing is a particularly “hot” topic in Australia at the moment, so it is perhaps not surprising that Transfield was singled out in this way.</p>
<p>Any boycott can be criticised for inconsistency. Any boycotter can be challenged with the allegation that he or she is boycotting X while ignoring the far worse behaviour of Y. This criticism is commonly made of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.</p>
<p>However, taken to its logical end, such an argument indicates that one cannot boycott anything unless one first boycotts and highlights Russian expansion, Syrian aggression, Congolese rape, Sri Lankan impunity, Cambodian corruption and Ugandan homophobia (as possible examples). </p>
<p>There is a descending scale of horribleness before one can legitimately complain about offshore detention centres, and people will rank the horribles in different orders. Such an argument impugns the success of the anti-apartheid movement, given the role played by economic sanctions and boycotts in bringing an end to white minority rule in South Africa. No activist, except perhaps those whose special target is North Korea, can satisfy such scrutiny.</p>
<p>There are many and varied human rights issues in the world and in Australia, and they will all attract some sort of activist constituency. Individuals, alone or in concert, are entitled to compete in the marketplace of ideas in arguing that X or Y should be boycotted, regardless of whether X and Y are “better” than A or B. </p>
<p>One hopes that the strongest arguments prevail, though that is not a certainty. Human rights abuses and complicity in them are not justified by the fact that other human rights abuses are or might be worse. “Tu quoque” is a distraction rather than a valid excuse!</p>
<h2>The Biennale takes government money</h2>
<p>The Biennale continues to take government money rather than Transfield money, when it is undoubtedly true that the Australian government is far more responsible for offshore processing (or non-processing) policies than any company.</p>
<p>Yet public funding cannot be compared to private funding. Public funding comes from the taxpayer.* It is “our money”. If one is to reject public funding based on disapproval of certain government policies, one logically has to reject publicly funded projects such as Medicare and university education. One loses out twice if one is in fact a taxpayer, as one is rejecting the benefits of “good spending” due to disapproval of “bad spending”.</p>
<p>Furthermore, public funding serves a different purpose to philanthropy. The arts are funded as public goods. Corporate philanthropy has an element of quid pro quo: money is donated, and in return the corporation gets a warm and fuzzy brand boost. That is not a criticism of philanthropy: it is a description of it.</p>
<p>In any case, the arts are funded via the Australia Council, which is supposed to operate “at arm’s length”, independent of government interference. It has zero input into the government’s asylum seeker policy. Transfield is much more implicated in that policy than the Australia Council.</p>
<h2>“Vicious ingratitude”</h2>
<p>In making his accusation of “vicious ingratitude”, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/malcolm-turnbull-denounces-vicious-ingratitude-of-biennale-artists-after-transfield-withdraws-as-sponsor-20140311-34ik6.html">Malcolm Turnbull</a> was perhaps thinking of his own role as a very rich person who enjoys the arts, and probably donates to them. But sponsorship is different to mere donation. </p>
<p>As noted above, there is a quid pro quo for a sponsor. The brand is associated with something “good”, even groovy or funky or posh, such as the arts. Associated perks such as free tickets accrue to employees and clients. </p>
<p>I agree here with the recent statement from the <a href="http://prodcdn.dailyreview.crikey.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/Biennale-statement.pdf">Biennale artists’ Working Group</a>: Turnbull’s statement “sets up a master-servant relationship that doesn’t reflect what corporate sponsors gain from their relationships with artists and arts organisations”.</p>
<h2>Brandis and “unreasonable” refusal of philanthropic funds</h2>
<p>So we come to the intervention of Arts Minister <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/george-brandis-defends-funding-moves-to-curb-political-boycotts-in-the-arts-20140314-34q4t.html">George Brandis</a>. First, this intervention might undermine the <a href="http://theconversation.com/the-australia-council-must-hold-firm-on-arms-length-funding-24460">independence of the Australia Council</a>. However, I want to concentrate instead on the broader implications.</p>
<p>News Corp columnist <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/opinion/columnists/biennale-boycott-is-no-more-than-commercial-bullying-in-the-name-of-the-arts/story-fn8qlm5e-1226855113204#mm-premium">Chris Kenny</a> talks of Brandis’s actions as reinforcing freedom of expression? What, the inalienable right to sponsor? The right to inflict a brand against the conscience of an unwilling recipient? Compulsory gratitude is no great win for free expression!</p>
<p>Perhaps Brandis’s intervention is designed to save taxpayer money, as arts bodies should take private funds and save public dollars. Yet the Biennale, to my knowledge, has not asked for the government to make up the shortfall. Certainly, on a case by case basis, it is fair that public funding decisions be partly driven by the viability of an artistic event, and refusal of private funds might impact on that viability.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t justify Brandis’s broadbrush assault on freedom of conscience. Any person has a right to reject an association with a business that he or she disapproves of.</p>
<p>To be fair, Brandis has only threatened withdrawal of government funding. No individual has a right to government funding for their artistic endeavour. But the conditioning of government funding on depoliticised behaviour, and the rejection of personal conscience, is a strange tactic from an Attorney General who is openly committed to “freedom”. </p>
<p>This sort of government action could lead to a very skewed public debate, where the privately funded can express opinions freely, but the publicly funded are more muzzled. In any case, art should be opinionated and brash, not craven and cowed.</p>
<p>Finally, Brandis’s suggestion may be a tad hyprocritical, given that the <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-08-22/liberal-party-kicks-habit-on-tobacco-industry-donations/4905366">Liberal Party</a>, which receives certain amounts of public funding, rejects donations from tobacco companies, which operate a perfectly legal (but toxic) business.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44472/original/ftjnk5yd-1395447499.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44472/original/ftjnk5yd-1395447499.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44472/original/ftjnk5yd-1395447499.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44472/original/ftjnk5yd-1395447499.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44472/original/ftjnk5yd-1395447499.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44472/original/ftjnk5yd-1395447499.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44472/original/ftjnk5yd-1395447499.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP/Ehssan Veiszadeh</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The right not to boycott</h2>
<p>In resigning as Chair, <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/arts/biennale-of-sydney-future-in-doubt-as-chairman-luca-belgiornonettis-resigns-over-disputed-links-to-detention-centres/story-fniv7r7y-1226848360250">Luca Belgiorno-Nettis</a> talked of harassment of himself, the Biennale organisers, and I have heard talk on Twitter of harassment of non-boycotting artists. </p>
<p>I do not believe that anyone is suggesting that the boycotting artists engaged in such harassment. However, it is certainly possible that some harassment occurred.** Unfortunately, it is not always possible to prevent the misguidedly overenthusiastic from crossing the line into bullying and harassment, especially in this age of social medial.</p>
<p>People have a right to engage in a boycott, especially for reasons of conscience. It is also important to respect the right not to participate in or support a boycott.</p>
<h2>Effectiveness of the boycott</h2>
<p>The most common criticism of the boycott is that it has not been, and was never likely to be, effective. Offshore detention will continue as bipartisan policy for the foreseeable future, and Transfield will not terminate its Nauru and Manus contracts.</p>
<p>However, there is no “effectiveness” criterion for legitimate political action. Otherwise the opportunities for political action from the non-powerful are very limited indeed. Political action can be seen as means to an end, but also an end in itself, as an expression of the artists’ conscience in this case. </p>
<p>Furthermore, the boycott may be part of a long game. Transfield is already being targeted through the lobbying of <a href="http://australia.isidewith.com/news/article/australian-services-union-calls-on-hesta-to-divest-funds-from-tr">industry pension funds</a>. Those funds may or may not respond: so be it.</p>
<p>It may even be that the boycott is counterproductive, in the sense that <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/biennale-of-sydney-facing-uncertain-future-after-severing-ties-with-transfield-20140307-34cl1.html">the future of the Biennale</a> in particular and corporate philanthropy in general may be threatened. This scenario strikes me as bit doomsday, but only time will tell. Like Transfield, the Biennale boycotters must also live with the consequences of their decisions.</p>
<p>A related criticism is that more effective and constructive protest actions were available. For example, the artists could have highlighted the injustices of offshore detention and even Transfield’s involvement through their art. Maybe. But, as my friend Brynn O’Brien has pointed out, such an approach smacks of “approved protest” in a “sanctioned space”, as opposed to unwieldy unpredictable protest which has clearly made Transfield and the government feel pretty uncomfortable.</p>
<p>Finally, given the extraordinary reaction from the government, it seems clear the Biennale boycott got under its skin. Otherwise, why the rush to try to shut down repeats of such action? Which means it may have had considerable effect. After all, weeks later many are still talking about it and discussing it and thinking about it. And I suspect that more people are going to pour through those Biennale doors.</p>
<ul>
<li><ul>
<li><em>My discussion at this point is influenced by a great Twitter discussion with Brynn O’Brien and Sean Mulcahy, which is “storified” <a href="http://storify.com/brynnobrien/our-money">here</a>.</em></li>
</ul></li>
<li><p>** I altered this paragraph on 25/3 as the original assertion of a belief that harassment had occurred was based on hearsay, especially on twitter. Furthermore, regarding the right not to boycott (and frankly the right to boycott): no one is free of attempted persuasion or even criticism. However, such activities should not cross a line into actual harassment and bullying. </p></li>
</ul>
<hr>
<p><em>This piece was first published at the Castan Centre for Human Rights’ <a href="http://castancentre.com/2014/03/21/the-biennale-boycott-blues/">blog</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24694/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
The Sydney Biennale has commenced after weeks of controversy over the severing of its relationship with Transfield, the company that runs the detention centre in Nauru and which will take over the one…Sarah Joseph, Director, Castan Centre for Human Rights Law, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/245332014-03-21T03:23:30Z2014-03-21T03:23:30ZWhat would a national artists strike look like?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44427/original/hvc729h4-1395362439.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Imagine a scenario whereby all artists undertake a month-long retraction of their labour.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">rytc/ Banksy in Boston</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Over the last six months, I have been thinking, writing and talking about the artist’s role, value and agency in society. I’ve been speaking to the idea that an artist’s contribution to society is, in part, their capacity for adhesion – that is, to stick seemingly unrelated elements together and provide meaning for the whole of society, including the economy within. </p>
<p>Inherent in this is the tension between the artist as citizen and the artist as worker.</p>
<h2>The workers in the arts industry</h2>
<p>Australian artists are the labour on which the so-called “arts industry” is based. The <a href="https://theconversation.com/we-can-rebalance-australias-economy-with-creative-industries-23458">creative economy</a> driven by artists and their labour is – depending which report you read – one of the fastest growing sectors in Australia. And with manufacturing and mining sectors in decline, the currency of Australia’s new economy will be ideas. The intellectual and creative capital generated by the arts remains desirable.</p>
<p>A high functioning market depends upon properly functioning industry. </p>
<p>The problem with the arts industry is the perilous position of its primary producers, the artists. Artists are the lowest paid members of the arts industry (and the Australian workforce). On average, they earn <a href="http://arts.gov.au/sites/default/files/visual-arts/Sub%2074%20Australia%20Council%20for%20the%20Arts%20.pdf">A$7,000</a> a year from their practice. According to <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/peter-shergold-279/profile_bio">Peter Shergold</a> in his <a href="http://www.arts.qld.gov.au/publications/art-plus.html">2011 discussion paper on arts funding</a>, direct funding for individual artists in Australia has fallen by a third since the 1990s. </p>
<p>What kind of an industry has the majority of its primary producers living below the poverty line? </p>
<p>Perversely, if artists were to withdraw their labour the whole damned thing would collapse. So there is an inverse aspect to this parasitic relationship – between the value of the artist to the industry and the value the industry assigns the artist.</p>
<h2>Autonomy for artists?</h2>
<p>On other indicators such as influence and agency, artists are also at the bottom of the food chain. </p>
<p>Their autonomy has been curtailed by policy that institutionalises them within organisations, events and venues that curate culture on behalf of funding agencies. They have little or no influence in determining their conditions, as they are barely visible at elite levels of governance. </p>
<p>And most troubling, their diminished condition has been facilitated within and by the arts industry whose growth is predicated on maintaining their inequitable position in the equation of artistic production.</p>
<p>It’s important background to the activation of Australian artists over the last few months: the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/sydney-biennale-boycott">Sydney Biennale boycott</a>, the issue of <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/theatre/theatre-companies-immoral-for-not-paying-20131206-2ywkz.html">payment to independent artists</a> by the Melbourne Theatre Company and the <a href="https://theconversation.com/arts-companies-should-be-able-to-tell-governments-to-bugger-off-22841">supposed self-censorship of a politically-sensitive line</a> from an Australian play by the Artistic Director of the Queensland Theatre Company. </p>
<p>The kicker of course is the current arts minister’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-of-being-awkward-brandis-is-wrong-about-the-biennale-24336">seemingly threatening overtures</a> regarding sponsorship policy. One reason Australian artists are activating now is because they feel they have nothing to lose. It’s often when one feels most disempowered that one appreciates one’s actual power.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44424/original/94dh978d-1395361587.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44424/original/94dh978d-1395361587.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44424/original/94dh978d-1395361587.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44424/original/94dh978d-1395361587.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=418&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44424/original/94dh978d-1395361587.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44424/original/94dh978d-1395361587.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/44424/original/94dh978d-1395361587.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=526&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Brandis fielding questions about his comments on the Australia Council.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Ehssan Veiszadeh</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Artists strike – today</h2>
<p>On the basis of these industrial conditions, last year <a href="http://www.currencyhouse.org.au/node/294">I called for a national artists strike</a> which I’ve been asked to revisit for this piece in terms of how it might look today.</p>
<p>Let’s imagine a scenario whereby all artists – including actors, dancers, musicians, choreographers, composers, designers, directors, sculptors, photographers, writers, media artists, digital artists, painters and sound artists – undertake a month-long retraction of their labour. </p>
<p>There would be widespread disruption or cancellation of theatre, dance, music, opera as well as visual arts exhibitions in which the work of living artists is presented and all the education programs that take place within these spaces and within schools – a total shutdown of the presentation of the performing, visual and media arts. </p>
<p>The major organisations, cultural institutions and events would close their doors and retrench their staff. </p>
<p>No festivals, no blockbusters, no shows. The greater economy would suffer significantly because of the knock-on effect to related industries such as transport, childcare, hospitality, and so on. </p>
<p>Social wellbeing indices would dive as an active arts sector mitigates social health problems. </p>
<p>What the arts holds together would come unstuck. This is where the industrial concerns of the artist impact on civic society.</p>
<p>Conversely, when those Biennale artists boycotted the event their point of departure was civic action: active citizens withdrawing their labour on ethical grounds. This conflation of the artist as worker and citizen has come about because of a shift in artists’ understanding of the value of their work. </p>
<p>It starts with a resistance to the singular compression of their work to a monetary value – it has that, of course, and that is what feeds their families. But it does not constitute its only value and meaning. </p>
<p>Value and meaning are also found in the industrial context in which artists make and present their work and artists’ complicity in the governing social and political contexts. These concentric circles of action and connection, of labour and values, are central to the identity of artists as citizens and workers. </p>
<p>As more Australian artists discover how to keep these balls in the air, the question is: where will they next draw the line?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24533/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Pledger does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Over the last six months, I have been thinking, writing and talking about the artist’s role, value and agency in society. I’ve been speaking to the idea that an artist’s contribution to society is, in…David Pledger, Independent artist and PhD student, School of Architecture, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/241012014-03-20T04:23:22Z2014-03-20T04:23:22ZBiennales are politics by other means – don’t dismiss them<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44237/original/rp8mznp7-1395189268.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Large media coverage and biennales tend to go hand in hand.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Quentin Jones</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Although some doubted the <a href="https://theconversation.com/a-first-look-at-the-19th-biennale-of-sydney-23184">19th Biennale of Sydney</a> would proceed after the <a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-victory-over-transfield-misses-the-bigger-picture-24131">split from founding sponsor Transfield</a>, the country’s biggest contemporary art event opens this week in Sydney. <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/sydney-biennale-boycott">Debate continues</a> about the ethics of arts funding and the social responsibilities of artists, with Guido Belgiorno-Nettis (the brother of Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, the former chair of the Sydney Biennale) this week <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/guido-belgiornonettis-launches-scathing-attack-on-artists-who-protested-biennale-20140318-hvk62.html">criticising</a> the artists involved in the boycott of the event. </p>
<p>This year is the 19th Biennale since the event’s inception in 1973; since then works by more than 1,500 artists from more than 100 countries have been exhibited.</p>
<p>This year, it’s been a media spectacle – but large media coverage and biennales tend to go hand in hand, albeit for a variety of reasons. Why?</p>
<p>To answer that, we need to look at the history of biennales in the contemporary art world.</p>
<p>An art biennale – Italian for “every other year” – was first hosted in Venice in 1985. Its aim was ambitious – to draw the aesthetic and sensory world into a solitary, didactic space. This first <a href="http://www.labiennale.org/en/biennale/index.html">Venice Biennale</a> served as a model and there are now [more than 150 biennales](http://www.biennialfoundation.org/biennial-map/](http://www.biennialfoundation.org/biennial-map/) internationally.</p>
<p>Although these art events do tend to take place every two years, the contemporary use of the term “biennale” is more conceptual than literal. Rather the term indicates a major, recurrent art exhibition identified with the city or state. Contemporary art historians have further distinguished the term from its initial meaning as one that includes spatial and perspectival features, or a “<a href="http://www.seismopolite.com/connecting-metaphorical-spaces">space-theoretic typology</a>” to acknowledge the discursive features characteristic of contemporary biennales.</p>
<p>The development of the biennale in national terms has prompted a new interdisciplinary science of “bienniology”. The <a href="http://www.biennialfoundation.org">Biennial Foundation</a> was established in 2009 and the first <a href="http://www.worldbiennialforum.org/">World Biennial Forum</a> took place in 2012. A journal, <a href="http://www.seismopolite.com/about-us">Seismopolite</a> was established in 2011 and takes as <a href="http://www.seismopolite.com/turning-the-tide-the-oppositional-past-and-uncertain-future-of-the-contemporary-b">its focus</a> biennales in the developing world.</p>
<h2>There’s no biennale without politics</h2>
<p>The art director of the Sydney Biennale’s 19th installment, Juliana Engberg, has maintained a travel blog, <a href="http://engbergontheroad.com">Engberg on the Road</a>, documenting her research for the Sydney event. In September 2013, Engberg attended the Istanbul Biennale, <a href="http://13b.iksv.org/en">Mom, Am I Barbarian?</a>, accompanying the curator Fulya Erdemci in the weeks leading up to its unveiling amid a violent crackdown of anti-government protests in Istanbul. Members of the Turkish public were demanding a dismantling of the Biennale. </p>
<p>Showing she is no stranger to political tumult around art, Engberg <a href="http://engbergontheroad.com/2013/09/24/mom-am-i-barbarian-13th-istanbul-biennial/">described</a> the moments leading up to the opening:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Fulya [Erdemci] had already started to formulate her thoughts around Istanbul and its sites of territorial, political, economic and social contest. Her plan – as she described it to me at the time – was to … interrogate the shifting status of ownership and occupation. This was extending out to questions about citizenship, language, shared futures and solutions rather than divided pasts; while of course, acknowledging differences and accepting otherness. </p>
<p>Both of us feel strongly that art has a purposeful language, and a role to play in providing metaphoric dreams and aspirations for a future positive, even if describing the unsettled present and the haunted, dispiriting past. The language of art might include protest, but it is often better nuanced than bluntly didactic or documentary … </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Julian Meyrick, writing on The Conversation this week about the response of federal Minister for the Arts George Brandis’ response to the Biennale boycott, <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-australia-council-must-hold-firm-on-arms-length-funding-24460">issued four directives</a> to arts ministers. One of them resonates here: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>[w]hatever happens in politics ends up in the arts. That’s because it’s artists’ job to be socially responsive. So no Fake Shock when art ends up a battleground for the issues of the day. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>This socially responsive role for artists is the one envisaged by Engberg in Istanbul. A nation’s political climate <em>ought</em> to be mirrored in an event such as the Sydney Biennale.</p>
<h2>Something more than an Art Olympics</h2>
<p>The Sydney Biennale is a kind of art “superevent”, akin to what New Yorker’s art critic Peter Schjeldahl contemptuously <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/archive/1999/07/05/1999_07_05_085_TNY_LIBRY_000018558">termed</a> “Festivalism”. These events are often the target of scepticism both for their commercial motivations and the way that might complicate a notion of “authentic” national culture. </p>
<p>As <a href="http://www.hatjecantz.de/files/9783775726108_06.pdf">theorised</a> by Indian cultural scholar <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranjit_Hoskote">Ranjit Hoskote</a>, a biennale is not just a set of surfaces but rather:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>a discursive environment: a theatre that allows for the staging of arguments, speculations, and investigations concerning the nature of our shared, diversely veined, and demanding contemporary condition.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Biennales do have shortcomings, but to dismiss the events as a whole, he argues “would be to fail to take into account a platform that has undeniably given rise to some of the most engaged debates and thought-provoking artworks of our time”.</p>
<p>That’s why the Sydney Biennale retains its relevance in the Australian cultural canon. It’s also why debate about the political implications of the Biennale and scrutiny of its sponsorship arrangements are essential.</p>
<p><br>
<em>The 19th Biennale of Sydney opens this weekend. Details <a href="http://www.biennaleofsydney.com.au/">here</a>.</em></p>
<p><br>
<em>Are you an academic or researcher working on contemporary art? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor.</a></em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24101/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jessica Birkett does not work for, consult to, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has no relevant affiliations.</span></em></p>Although some doubted the 19th Biennale of Sydney would proceed after the split from founding sponsor Transfield, the country’s biggest contemporary art event opens this week in Sydney. Debate continues…Jessica Birkett, Gallerist; Doctoral Candidate at the University of Melbourne; Teaching Associate, Monash UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/244602014-03-17T19:37:45Z2014-03-17T19:37:45ZThe Australia Council must hold firm on ‘arm’s length’ funding<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/44047/original/3gk6vxqk-1395018596.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The history of arts funding in Australia suggests the "arm's length" principle is worth preserving.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/wallyg/8688176471/sizes/o/">wallyg/ Artist: OverUnder, Brooklyn</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Things to remember if you are a federal minister for the arts:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>In arts policy, as in the arts, <em>how</em> you do things matters as much as what you do. Good ideas become bad ideas if your tone is wrong or you aim at the wrong audience.</p></li>
<li><p>Breaking news: artists are difficult to deal with. There’s no money in art, so people stick to their principles like flies to a jam tart. Trying to change those principles by <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-of-being-awkward-brandis-is-wrong-about-the-biennale-24336">threatening their funding</a> only makes things worse.</p></li>
<li><p>Whatever happens in politics ends up in the arts. That’s because it’s artists’ job to be socially responsive. So no Fake Shock when art ends up a battleground for the issues of the day.</p></li>
<li><p>The arts and arts policy are not in stable orbit. They don’t revolve in a genteel way, but zoom about, like Sandra Bullock and George Clooney in Gravity, trying not to kick each other’s teeth in.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>There’s more, but these are the most pertinent as Senator George Brandis, the current federal arts minister, continues to respond to the <a href="https://theconversation.com/topics/sydney-biennale-boycott">ongoing furore</a> surrounding the 2014 Biennale of Sydney, which begins this week. </p>
<p>Brandis <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/sydney-biennale-shame-risks-funding-says-george-brandis/story-fn59niix-1226853051859">reportedly directed the Australia Council</a> to revise its sponsorship guidelines in the wake of the Biennale boycott and has since <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/george-brandis-defends-funding-moves-to-curb-political-boycotts-in-the-arts-20140314-34q4t.html">reiterated his view</a> that it is unreasonable for arts companies to refuse sponsorship on political grounds. </p>
<p>Last Thursday on The Conversation, Peter Tregear brought <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-of-being-awkward-brandis-is-wrong-about-the-biennale-24336">some much-needed perspective</a> to this fractious dispute. He called the relationship between the arts and politics “awkward”, and pointed out the contradictions in Brandis’ seeming determination to force arts organisations to accept sponsorship from any “commercially sound” business.</p>
<p>The dispute involves hard issues – “hard” as in “real” <em>and</em> “difficult to solve”. But it also reflects trends in the provision of arts subsidy. Considerable fur has flown concerning the right of artists to protest the involvement of Transfield Services in the Biennale. </p>
<p>What has caused less comment is the constant muddling of “public assistance” with “government funding” – and the related suggestion that if artists really want to object to the federal policy of mandatory detention, they should refuse Australia Council support on the basis that it too is <a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-victory-over-transfield-misses-the-bigger-picture-24131">tainted money</a>.</p>
<p>This is a ludicrous proposition with no basis in logic or reality. Why not refuse Medicare or educational services or military protection since the government provides those also? Except it doesn’t. They are provided by taxpayers, and the government of the day has a leading, but not a dictatorial, say on the purpose and extent of such expenditure.</p>
<h2>The arm’s length principle</h2>
<p>Brandis’ comments about Australia Council funding indicate a fresh erosion of the “arm’s length” relationship between the agency and the government that was a principle of its foundation in 1973. </p>
<p>Since then, ministers of all political hues have often pursued policy objectives without due regard for the agency’s statutory independence. The most notorious occasion was what Justin McDonnell, in his book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Arts-Minister-Government-Policy-Theatre/dp/0868192961/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395016001&sr=8-1&keywords=justin+macdonnell">Arts, Minister?</a> (1992), calls the “Great Redistribution Debate” of 1983-4. Back then, the Australia Council imposed a A$300,000 grant limit on all arts organisations. Going behind its back, Prime Minister Bob Hawke provided Cabinet-level funding for select companies that left the agency’s strategic plan in tatters.</p>
<p>Over time <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minister_for_the_Arts_(Australia)">arts ministers’</a> arms have got shorter and shorter. </p>
<p>They have front-loaded equity and access (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Cohen">Barry Cohen</a>, Hawke’s arts minister), excellence and quality (Paul Keating), cost-effectiveness and financial stability (Richard Alston, under Howard), and innovation and technology (Simon Crean, under Gillard). </p>
<p>In the 1990s, the Council was reorganised to make its art form boards more responsive to direction from above, while the federal <a href="http://arts.gov.au/">Office for the Arts</a> effectively became a rival grant body. </p>
<p>In 2012, a <a href="http://creativeaustralia.arts.gov.au/policy-development/australia-council-review/">review of the operation of the Australia Council</a> prescribed “a more formalised requirement for communication and planning with the Australian Government”. The review was the basis of a new <a href="http://www.comlaw.gov.au/Details/C2013A00071">Australia Council Act</a>, passed into law last year by the Gillard government. </p>
<p>Former arts minister Tony Burke is right <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/george-brandis-defends-funding-moves-to-curb-political-boycotts-in-the-arts-20140314-34q4t.html">to warn</a> of Senator Brandis’ interventionism in the arts – but it was his government that put in place the legislation to facilitate it.</p>
<p>It’s as if successive governments, having granted the Australia Council independence, then regretted it. Yet they have never had the courage to replace it with a ministry and take responsibility for their own actions. Or perhaps it’s convenient to have the agency do the government’s dirty work for it. Ministers can claim they aren’t interfering in the arts directly – while leaning on the Council to “tighten guidelines”.</p>
<p>At first blush, the Council’s loss of independence would be no disaster. Why shouldn’t governments determine cultural expenditure? Better than having the agency a captive of its clients.</p>
<h2>Before the Australia Council</h2>
<p>But look further back, to the Council’s predecessor, the <a href="http://trove.nla.gov.au/people/783793">Australian Elizabethan Theatre Trust</a> (AETT), and you’ll see that what Brandis takes as an unambiguously good thing – corporate involvement in the arts – was partly what persuaded people an independent arts agency was needed in the first place.</p>
<p>The AETT, established in 1954, was a silvertail affair, narrow and inept in equal measure, controlled by Australia’s business and social elite. It gave out tax credits and guarantees against loss that proved unaccountable, inequitable and difficult to quantify on a Treasury ledger.</p>
<p>The AETT was a body that had almost no artists on it. Its decisions about which projects to support became increasingly erratic. Artists’ representation at board level was a hot topic when the AETT was replaced in 1968 by the Australian Council for the Arts, and again in 1975 when the Australia Council achieved statutory independence.</p>
<p>It is one thing to say that corporate sponsorship – which is different from corporate philanthropy (another confusion in the current debate) – is an important part of the funding mix.</p>
<p>It is another to assert it is “the heart and soul of good funding policy”. Corporate involvement in the arts brings with it problems as well as benefits, and needs as much judicious handling as direct public assistance.</p>
<h2>How will the Australia Council react?</h2>
<p>The Council’s reaction will be a crucial test of how much backbone it has left after years of political traducing. It was set up as an advocacy body for the arts to the government. More often it has been the government’s representative in the field, or got caught in the middle, talking to two sides who won’t talk to each other.</p>
<p>You only have to read Justin McDonnell’s much-underrated <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Arts-Minister-Government-Policy-Theatre/dp/0868192961/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1395016001&sr=8-1&keywords=justin+macdonnell">book</a> on Australian arts funding over the decades to see how similar the Biennale dispute is to blow-ups in the past.</p>
<p>But the minister and artists must also now act with some care. It is a small step from insisting arts organisations accept corporate sponsorship when offered, to insisting they meet sponsorship targets. This would affect the <a href="http://www.ampag.com.au/">28 major performing arts companies</a> particularly – and Senator Brandis could unwittingly be paving the way for the elimination of direct subsidy to these bodies.</p>
<p>That would make them entirely non-responsive to the government’s agenda and even more socially exclusive than they currently are.</p>
<p>For artists, faced with the issue of how far to extend their protest, there is a need to ensure that, in pursuing activist goals, the agency isn’t further eviscerated.</p>
<p>The Council is more than a government piggy-bank. It is a living symbol of the accord between the Australian people and Australian artists, a guarantee of free speech in the cultural arena. From a policy point of view, this freedom is neither a right nor a privilege, but an accomplishment.</p>
<p>It relies on all parties respecting the institutional parameters in which it is enacted.</p>
<p>Like a spreading stain, the government’s policy of mandatory detention has caught the Biennale and downed its well-intentioned patron, Luca Belgiorno-Nettis. I doubt it has finished spreading yet.</p>
<p><br>
<strong>Further reading:</strong> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/luca-belgiorno-nettis-should-just-buy-a-yacht-24355">Luca Belgiorno-Nettis should just buy a yacht</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-of-being-awkward-brandis-is-wrong-about-the-biennale-24336">The art of being awkward: Brandis is wrong about the Biennale</a> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-there-any-clean-money-left-to-fund-the-arts-24159">Is there any clean money left to fund the arts?</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-victory-over-transfield-misses-the-bigger-picture-24131">Artists’ victory over Transfield misses the bigger picture</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-biennale-transfield-and-the-value-of-boycott-24155">The Biennale, Transfield, and the value of boycott</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-artists-boycott-the-sydney-biennale-over-transfield-links-23067">Should artists boycott the Sydney Biennale over Transfield links?</a></p>
<p><br>
<em>Are you an academic or researcher working on arts policy? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24460/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Julian Meyrick does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Things to remember if you are a federal minister for the arts: In arts policy, as in the arts, how you do things matters as much as what you do. Good ideas become bad ideas if your tone is wrong or you…Julian Meyrick, Professor of Strategic Arts, Flinders UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/243552014-03-13T06:12:56Z2014-03-13T06:12:56ZLuca Belgiorno-Nettis should just buy a yacht<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43828/original/53gr962z-1394690756.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption"></span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">mrtruffle</span></span></figcaption></figure><figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43828/original/53gr962z-1394690756.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43828/original/53gr962z-1394690756.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43828/original/53gr962z-1394690756.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43828/original/53gr962z-1394690756.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43828/original/53gr962z-1394690756.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43828/original/53gr962z-1394690756.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43828/original/53gr962z-1394690756.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43828/original/53gr962z-1394690756.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">mrtruffle</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Luca Belgiorno-Nettis’s family contributed A$600,000 toward the A$10 million budget of this year’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biennale_of_Sydney">Sydney Biennale</a> (Australia’s largest outdoor arts festival), continuing a long family tradition of generous support that began with his father Franco, who was the founding governor of the Biennale in 1973. </p>
<p>Good on you, Luca, that’s a great thing to do.</p>
<p>The problem, according to nine artists who have withdrawn in protest, following from an open letter signed by 41, is that Belgiorno-Nettis’s contribution was made through the family’s company Transfield Holdings, which is a small shareholder in Transfield Services, which supplies facilities to the Manus Island detention centre, through a contract awarded and paid for by the Australian government. </p>
<p>These artists have succeeded in being so outraged at Belgiorno-Nettis for being once associated with a company that is doing what the Australian Government requires them contractually to do, that the board of the Biennale has sought and gained his <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-03-11/biennale-sponsor-sickened-by-concentration-camp-accusations/5313604">resignation as Chair of the board</a>. The protesters, as such, were “successful”.</p>
<p>Now this is all <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/sydney-biennale-shame-risks-funding-says-george-brandis/story-fn59niix-1226853051859">very political</a>. But that’s not what I want to talk about here. The purpose of today’s column is to look at the economics of this type of protest action from the perspective of the various parties.</p>
<p>On the surface, this looks like a win for the protesters, who were artists, and a loss for private companies, and Mr Belgiorno-Nettis in particular, who were sponsors. So in the “artists vs capitalism” narrative, this looks like a clear victory for bleeding hearts.</p>
<p>But the thing about economics is that it trains you to focus on the “things unseen”, in the language of 19th-century economist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fr%C3%A9d%C3%A9ric_Bastiat">Frederic Bastiat</a>. The unseen in this case are consumers (or festival-goers), and taxpayers. The question is whether they were also winners.</p>
<h2>The cost of the boycott</h2>
<p>For the artists, the boycott didn’t really cost them anything. </p>
<p>Certainly it didn’t cost the 41 petition-signers anything: there is no opportunity cost to adding their signature, and they probably gained some self-satisfaction themselves. (If the 41 had made a private donation of A$14,634 each to make up for the expected loss from their actions, then it would have been a meaningful costly action.) So technically, that was an act of consumption, not of protest. </p>
<p>Of those who withdrew, several were international artists. The loss of potential sales in Australia will presumably be more than made up for by international publicity garnered in other markets. Maybe that’s what the locals are hoping for too. </p>
<p>Artists trade on reputation and identity, and withdrawal in protest (for whatever reason, really) brings a kind of cultural cachet that is of capital value to the individual artist: they can trade on that reputation. My point is simply that this act was not much of a sacrifice for the artists themselves, and possibly a shrewd career move.</p>
<p>But for the protesters to claim success, they have to have had an impact: so where did that impact fall? </p>
<p>First, it has raised the risk premium on private philanthropy in arts festivals in general, and the Biennale in particular. The expected cost/ benefit calculation will now shift, and we can reasonably expect a reallocation of philanthropic funding away from arts festivals and onto other substitute goods. Maybe yacht sales might benefit, or alma mater, or the heirs of wealthy Sydney families.</p>
<p>The second-round effect is that local residents who themselves benefited from the (subsidised) festival, will now face either less festival, or a more costly festival for them, if say entry costs have to rise to make up the shortfall, which in turn will deter some potential festival goers. </p>
<p>In third-round effect that same group of organisers and consumers will now be motivated to seek to pass those costs wider – to the set of other Australians, who are likely not attending the Biennale, namely taxpayers. And if taxpayers do pick up that bill, then the cost is passed on to whatever other government program had to be cut or reduced at the margin to fund that. </p>
<p>The point of my ornery little rant here is that while these actions produced benefits to the protesters, they were not costless. </p>
<p>Specifically, what happened is that the costs were passed on, first to those who face a reduced Biennale experience or were priced out at the margin, then to other government programs, which will be reduced in proportion. </p>
<p>Sydney festival-goers and Australian citizens should be disappointed by the actions of the nine protesters. Wealthy families have many choices in spending their money and if public benefaction becomes more expensive then that makes yachts and other private consumption goods relatively less expensive.</p>
<p><br>
<strong>Further reading:</strong> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-of-being-awkward-brandis-is-wrong-about-the-biennale-24336">The art of being awkward: Brandis is wrong about the Biennale</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-should-value-the-biennale-protest-not-threaten-arts-funding-24333">We should value the Biennale protest, not threaten arts funding</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-there-any-clean-money-left-to-fund-the-arts-24159">Is there any clean money left to fund the arts?</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-victory-over-transfield-misses-the-bigger-picture-24131">Artists’ victory over Transfield misses the bigger picture</a><a href="https://theconversation.com/the-biennale-transfield-and-the-value-of-boycott-24155">The Biennale, Transfield, and the value of boycott</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-artists-boycott-the-sydney-biennale-over-transfield-links-23067">Should artists boycott the Sydney Biennale over Transfield links?</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24355/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
Luca Belgiorno-Nettis’s family contributed A$600,000 toward the A$10 million budget of this year’s Sydney Biennale (Australia’s largest outdoor arts festival), continuing a long family tradition of generous…Jason Potts, Professor of Economics, RMIT UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/243362014-03-13T04:54:56Z2014-03-13T04:54:56ZThe art of being awkward: Brandis is wrong about the Biennale<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43815/original/htghkq34-1394683483.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Politicians and artists often join together in an uncomfortable game. </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alan Porritt/AAP Image</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>As anyone who works in the arts business well knows, when art and politics meet (and certainly when art and politicians meet …) the result is more often than not awkward. </p>
<p>Many of us will remember the fuss around former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2008/05/23/1211183044543.html/">pre-emptive strike</a> in 2008 on an exhibition of Bill Henson’s photographs. It didn’t seem then, and still doesn’t seem today, to be one of Rudd’s finest political moments. If he believed he was standing up against the public display of offensive material (albeit before he’d been to the exhibition in question) he was also invoking that surely more offensive of “c” words – censorship.</p>
<p>Once again, however, a politician has publicly challenged the appropriateness of the arts community’s capacity to be awkward. A <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/sydney-biennale-shame-risks-funding-says-george-brandis/story-fn59niix-1226853051859/">report in today’s The Australian</a> notes that Federal Arts Minister George Brandis has issued a thinly-veiled threat to arts organisations that “reject private sponsorship because of political pressure”. </p>
<p>The threat came in the form of a letter to Rupert Myer, chairman of the <a href="http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/">Australia Council</a>, “demanding” – according to The Australian’s report – the body develops a policy to deal with (that is, one assumes threaten the funding of) any Australia Council-funded body that “refuses funding offered by corporate sponsors, or terminates a current funding agreement”.</p>
<p>Brandis is responding to the apparent success of <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-artists-boycott-the-sydney-biennale-over-transfield-links-23067">a campaign</a> by artists associated with this year’s <a href="http://www.biennaleofsydney.com.au/">Sydney Biennale of Sydney</a> (which, ironically, is subtitled “you imagine what you desire”) to pressure the Board of the Biennale to relinquish its sponsorship agreement with Transfield Holdings. </p>
<p>This was on the basis that Transfield Services <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/03/construction-company-set-to-take-over-salvos-asylum-seeker-welfare-services">has contracts</a> with the Australian Government to operate the Manus Island and Nauru detention centres. The executive director of Transfield Holdings, Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, was also the Chairman of the Biennale. He <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/booksandartsdaily/why-did-belgiorno-nettis-resign-from-sydney-biennale-board3f/5311796">resigned</a> last week. </p>
<p>Given Transfield Holdings remains a major sponsor of a number of other Australia Council-funded organisations (including the <a href="http://www.aco.com.au/">Australian Chamber Orchestra</a> and the the <a href="http://www.transfield.com.au/museum-of-contemporary-art-mca">Museum of Contemporary Art</a>), the impact of the fuss around the Sydney Biennale decision could be far-reaching.</p>
<p>How far-reaching depends, of course, on politics. I would argue that we should not be afraid of this fact – unless we want the arts to be “relevant” and “meaningful” only when it makes us comfortable. </p>
<p>Arts sponsorship is, indeed, always political. Commercial companies do it not just out of a sense of altruism. It helps with brand management and can give senior managers social capital to leverage for business advantage, among other benefits. </p>
<p>None of this is inherently wrong, or bad. But neither is a debate about such sponsorship in and of itself ill-conceived or misplaced. To that extent, George Brandis is wrong to imply that it is. </p>
<p>Brandis is also wrong to suggest the political opinion of the individual artists boycotting the event was “a matter which has nothing to do with the Sydney Biennale”. <a href="http://www.bartleby.com/17/1/79.html">Aesop was on the money</a> (as it were) when he argued that once an artist or arts organisation was connected to the community-at-large he or she could could not claim to be separate from it when things got, well, awkward …</p>
<p>Furthermore, if Brandis is concerned about the “effective blackballing of a benefactor […] merely because of its commercial arrangements”, is he not asking the Australia Council to commit a similar sin by refusing to fund organisations that make decisions based on political views with which he may disagree?</p>
<p>It is curious that he would argue this in context of the debate around S18C of the Racial Discrimination Act, given <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/george-brandis-to-repeal-bolt-laws-on-racial-discrimination-20131108-2x50p.html">his argument</a> for the Government to revise the current clause is, in my view, a powerful one. On a <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s3946770.htm">recent edition of ABC TV’s Q&A</a> Brandis said, no less:<br></p>
<blockquote>
<p>how do we achieve a civilised society? […] [D]o we have a society in which every time somebody says something unpopular or offensive to a majority of opinion the Parliament passes a law to say, well, you are prohibited. You are censored from saying that? I don’t want a society like that.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Is he not suggesting, in effect, that the Australia Council should silence (or at least disadvantage) organisations that say or do things the Government doesn’t like?</p>
<p>By the same token, there is no inherent contradiction in arts organisations taking funding from companies and governments that do things they disagree with if we are prepared to argue for the arts a place in civil society that we accord, say, to universities. </p>
<p>We should want them to be embodiments of the value of free speech, as awkward as that can be at times to ruling elites of any political persuasion. If we don’t allow occasional acts of subversiveness, the alternative might end up being submissiveness. </p>
<p>I know which I would prefer.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/comment/arts-kicks-own-goal-in-biennale-of-sydney-stoush-and-risks-vital-clash-20140308-34dzu.html">A report in the Sydney Morning Herald</a> declared that “the arts are the only loser in the Biennale of Sydney’s decision to sever ties with founding sponsor Transfield”.</p>
<p>I could not disagree more. As cultural commentator <a href="http://www.marcuswestbury.net/">Marcus Westbury</a> wrote recently on social media: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>The most important thing as far as I’m concerned for artistic freedom and democracy is to defend the principle that artists, audiences, and everyone can and should ask ethical questions of themselves.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>If as a result of the debate around the Sydney Biennale we not only take the arts more seriously, but also artists (and arts boards) take their social responsibilities more seriously, that’s no bad thing for both art and society.</p>
<p>On that point, I suspect, Brandis and I would agree.</p>
<p><br>
<strong>Further reading:</strong> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/luca-belgiorno-nettis-should-just-buy-a-yacht-24355">Luca Belgiorno-Nettis should just buy a yacht</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-should-value-the-biennale-protest-not-threaten-arts-funding-24333">We should value the Biennale protest, not threaten arts funding</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-there-any-clean-money-left-to-fund-the-arts-24159">Is there any clean money left to fund the arts?</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-victory-over-transfield-misses-the-bigger-picture-24131">Artists’ victory over Transfield misses the bigger picture</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-biennale-transfield-and-the-value-of-boycott-24155">The Biennale, Transfield, and the value of boycott</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-artists-boycott-the-sydney-biennale-over-transfield-links-23067">Should artists boycott the Sydney Biennale over Transfield links?</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24336/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Tregear does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>As anyone who works in the arts business well knows, when art and politics meet (and certainly when art and politicians meet …) the result is more often than not awkward. Many of us will remember the fuss…Peter Tregear, Professor and Head of School of Music, Australian National UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/243332014-03-13T03:26:12Z2014-03-13T03:26:12ZWe should value the Biennale protest, not threaten arts funding<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43776/original/bw3ygm5p-1394674724.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Federal Minister for the Arts George Brandis has proposed a way to to deal with grant applicants who refuse corporate funding.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Alan Porritt/AAP Image</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Today it was reported that the Federal Minister for the Arts George Brandis <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/sydney-biennale-shame-risks-funding-says-george-brandis/story-fn59niix-1226853051859#">has requested that the Australia Council</a> draft a new policy to deal with grant applicants who refuse funding offered by corporate sponsors. This follows the <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-artists-boycott-the-sydney-biennale-over-transfield-links-23067">recent protest by Biennale artists</a> against Australia’s policy of mandatory detention.</p>
<p>Society owes a lot to artists who have had the gumption to protest. </p>
<p>German painter <a href="http://www.moma.org/collection/artist.php?artist_id=2374">George Grosz</a> gave us images of a Weimar Republic in turmoil. Photomontage artist <a href="https://www.getty.edu/art/exhibitions/heartfield/">John Heartfield</a>, who anglicised his name in antipathy to the National Socialist regime, had the courage to take on the Party with images that continue to cast unlikely connections across the social and political fabric.</p>
<p>In Australia, during the initial phase of the national disgrace that is the Australian government policy on refugees, the Australian artists <a href="http://kallirolfecontemporaryart.com/artists/juan-davila/the-ring-of-the-mapuches">Juan Davila</a> and <a href="http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/?artist_id=parr-mike">Mike Parr</a> found ways to imagine the suffering of asylum-seekers protesting at the Woomera detention centre.</p>
<p>In 2002, Parr had his lips and face literally sewn up in a gruelling performance. Davila painted a set of powerful canvases in the early 2000s in which the victims were Australians themselves.</p>
<p>The Biennale protest took a different form: that of boycotting the exhibition. </p>
<p>The boycott reminds us, in these days of seamless co-operation between artists, institutions, and their funding sources, that the old term “military-industrial complex” describes something worth worrying about. It came as a shock to learn, through the protest, that a branch of Transfield, the <a href="http://xborderoperationalmatters.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/sydney-biennale-transfield/">venerable corporate supporter</a> of the Biennale of Sydney since its inception, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/03/construction-company-set-to-take-over-salvos-asylum-seeker-welfare-services">makes money</a> by running Australia’s detention centres. </p>
<p>The group of artists, in carefully considered letters such as <a href="http://xborderoperationalmatters.wordpress.com/2014/02/26/ogut-biennale/">this one from Turkish artist Ahmet Öğüt</a>, wrote that they could not participate in a venture that relies upon “wealth generated from the mandatory detention policies”. </p>
<p>George Brandis’ <a href="http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/sydney-biennale-shame-risks-funding-says-george-brandis/story-fn59niix-1226853051859#">comments today</a> in The Australian (suggesting future funding agreements through the Australia Council could demand the recipient does “not unreasonably terminate an existing agreement with a private partner”) form an ill-considered response to a fairly ordinary situation. It looks like a government meting out fiscal punishment to those who do not want the patronage of certain businesses, in this case those executing unconscionable government policies. </p>
<p>It also interferes with the precious arms-length administrative status of the tax-payer funded <a href="http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/">Australia Council</a>. Corporate sponsorship is a two-way symbiosis that cannot thrive with a governmental sword of Damocles hanging over each party.</p>
<p>Forty years ago protesting corporate involvement in the arts was both common and done with panache. </p>
<p>It became the focus of the German-American conceptual artist <a href="http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artists/hans-haacke-2217">Hans Haacke</a>, who saw the <a href="http://ewaneumann.com/websites/haacke/shapolsky.html">cancellation</a> of his 1971 exhibition at New York’s Guggenheim Museum when he documented the relationship between a slum-tenement landlord and members of the museum board. Artists protested the funding of the Art & Technology exhibitions in California because of corporate sponsorship by weapon manufacturers for the Vietnam War. </p>
<p>In Australia, the role of the tobacco giant Philip Morris in <a href="http://www.rennieellis.com.au/rennie-ellis/chronology">funding acquisitions</a> at the National Gallery Of Australia in Canberra were the subject of demonstrations by artists and the concerned public. </p>
<p>By and large Phillip Morris has won, despite occasional actions like the 1996 <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1996-05-01/business/fi-64702_1_philip-morris">cancellation</a> of their sponsorship of a San Diego Museum of Art exhibit. Their sponsorship has been seen as gilding the public image of a nefarious business, but it has gradually seeped into the arts ecology through the company’s persistence.</p>
<h2>Transfield and the arts</h2>
<p>The image of Transfield is quite different: visionary sponsorship of the startup Biennale by the Italian migrant and builder Franco Belgiorno-Nettis seemed a win-win for decades.</p>
<p>The Transfield Foundation does superb work funding, for example, the <a href="http://www.aco.com.au/">Australian Chamber Orchestra</a>, and many <a href="http://www.transfieldfoundation.org/index.php/grants/employment-and-education-particularly-for-indigenous-people">Indigenous programs</a>. But big companies diversify, with Transfield entering a service industry that has been mired in opprobrium since the Howard years: running refugee detention centres.</p>
<p>American writer Clement Greenberg <a href="http://www.artnet.com/magazineus/features/heartney/art-and-money-and-politics-3-28-11.asp">pointed out</a> 75 years ago that artists rely upon on a bourgeois elite to which they have remained “attached by an umbilical chain of gold”. </p>
<p>This fact does not make the artist’s moral life any easier. Contesting the forms of that link, rubbing up against the ruling social dynamics and making disputatious artworks, continues to power art that is significant. The Biennale protesters have put some life back into an institution that, like much in Australia these days, had become too comfortable. </p>
<p>I do not doubt the Biennale will continue on without Transfield’s 6.1% fiscal contribution. I hope that the company will consider severing its ties with the detention industry to re-establish its moral standing. Most money supporting the arts may be “tainted” (as <a href="https://theconversation.com/is-there-any-clean-money-left-to-fund-the-arts-24159">James Arvanitakis argued on The Conversation</a> earlier this week), but the taint of being involved with the Manus Island and Nauru detention centres is too extreme to be tolerated. </p>
<p>Luca Belgiorno-Nettis, in stepping down, allowed the Board of the Biennale to make the right choice: excision to allow a process of healing.</p>
<p>The process won’t be smooth running, and one grimly awaits works dealing with the crisis of Manus Island by certain protesting artists who have chosen to remain within the Biennale. But those artists who withdrew should be saluted for raising their voices against a grotesque government policy, one that makes old-fashioned citizens like me ashamed to call myself Australian.</p>
<p><br>
<strong>Further reading:</strong> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/luca-belgiorno-nettis-should-just-buy-a-yacht-24355">Luca Belgiorno-Nettis should just buy a yacht</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-art-of-being-awkward-brandis-is-wrong-about-the-biennale-24336">The art of being awkward: Brandis is wrong about the Biennale</a> <br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-there-any-clean-money-left-to-fund-the-arts-24159">Is there any clean money left to fund the arts?</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-victory-over-transfield-misses-the-bigger-picture-24131">Artists’ victory over Transfield misses the bigger picture</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-biennale-transfield-and-the-value-of-boycott-24155">The Biennale, Transfield, and the value of boycott</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-artists-boycott-the-sydney-biennale-over-transfield-links-23067">Should artists boycott the Sydney Biennale over Transfield links?</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24333/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Roger Benjamin receives funding from the Australian Research Council. He is past president and a member of the Art Association Australian and New Zealand. </span></em></p>Today it was reported that the Federal Minister for the Arts George Brandis has requested that the Australia Council draft a new policy to deal with grant applicants who refuse funding offered by corporate…Roger Benjamin, Professor in Art History, University of SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/241592014-03-11T00:30:31Z2014-03-11T00:30:31ZIs there any clean money left to fund the arts?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43439/original/5v9cs4nb-1394411634.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Sydney Biennale boycott campaign has raised important – and difficult – questions about how we fund the arts.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Wexner Centre</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In the wake of the Sydney Biennale’s split from its major sponsor Transfield in recent days, <a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-victory-over-transfield-misses-the-bigger-picture-24131">certain uncomfortable questions</a> are again floating very close to the surface.</p>
<p>In the late 1990s, I had a successful career in finance. As a free-market hawk, I had revelled in the introduction of the neoliberal agenda and, armed with an education from a conservative economics department, honestly believed a free market would lead a fairer society for all. </p>
<p>In retrospect, I was naïve – but that’s who I was.</p>
<p>Working in finance, I was well compensated and built a healthy share portfolio, purchased property and enjoyed the benefits of an expense account.</p>
<p>For reasons not of concern here, I took a year off and travelled around the world on what was originally meant to be a romantic holiday of wine, women, and dance. In the end it ended up very differently: I witnessed child labour, environmental destruction, the displacement of indigenous people and people excluded from beaches because of the colour of their skin.</p>
<p>The failings and brutality of the free market were laid bare.</p>
<p>On returning to Australia I made some life-changing decisions, including investigating the behaviour of the organisations I had invested in. It was a financially difficult decision, but I slowly divested myself from the shares of organisations that compromised human, social, environmental or labour rights.</p>
<p>I have attempted to direct my funds and consumption patterns towards ethical organisations ever since. It’s not an easy thing to do, and I find myself making all sorts of compromises: the pasta company that’s good on genetically modified foods but has a homophobic chief executive; the large supermarket that sells organically produced tomatoes but has questionable retail practices; the fair-trade coffee company with excessive packaging.</p>
<p>We love smartphones but <a href="https://www.newmatilda.com/2013/08/07/your-phone-paying-guns">recent research into mineral supply chains</a> by University of Sydney PhD student, Darian McBain is exposing the grim social and environmental costs of consumer electronics, including links to the funding of guns.</p>
<p>I love watching rugby league – but what do I do about the gambling and alcohol sponsors?</p>
<h2>The money trail</h2>
<p>Anyone who has worked with community-based, human rights or arts organisations knows the difficulty of accessing funds and trying to survive.</p>
<p>It’s here things get even more complex: how does a small community-based organisation such as a local sports team survive without money from the so-called “club industry”. You know, the money that comes from problem gamblers that are losing their homes. </p>
<p>Or what of one of my favourite theatre companies, sponsored by BHP Billiton, when we are being told constantly that mining projects the world over are accelerating climate change? </p>
<p>When I was the Campaigns Director at <a href="http://www.aidwatch.org.au/">Aid/Watch</a>, an independent monitor of Australian foreign aid spending, we a had very clear policy on funding: no money from corporations. But we did take money from philanthropic organisations who made their money from the share market – which put us back to the same loop.</p>
<p>We had to investigate the difference between the <a href="http://www.rbf.org/">Rockefeller Brothers Fund</a> and the <a href="http://www.rockefellerfoundation.org/">Rockefeller Foundation</a>. It was complex, but as an organisation that specialised in finding the money trail of large infrastructure projects, it was something we became very good at. Despite this, I could never honestly feel each and every dollar that entered our bank account was clean.</p>
<h2>Arts funding and dirty money</h2>
<p>One of my research areas has been on understanding the role of the arts in society. I am particularly interested in why, in a time of economic hardship, it’s seen as important to fund the arts.</p>
<p>Despite the many social and health benefits we know of that flow from funding the arts, many governments choose to give very little to the arts. The answer for the arts community is philanthropic funds from organisations.</p>
<p>The problem is that it is never “clean” money: BHP Billiton <a href="http://www.bellshakespeare.com.au/support/corporate/currentpartners">sponsors Bell Shakespeare</a>; the Belvoir’s <a href="http://belvoir.com.au/support-belvoir/corporate-partnerships/our-sponsors/">partners include alcohol companies</a>. There are links between the National Gallery of Victoria and the Chinese Chamber of Commerce (the founding member of the Chinese Chamber of Commerce <a href="http://www.majorprojects.vic.gov.au/our-projects/our-past-projects/national-gallery-of-victoria-international/news/new-appointments-boost-ngvas-breadth-and-depth">is a trustee</a>) – uncomfortable for those supporting Tibet.</p>
<p>As most of us know now, Transfield Holdings has a <a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-victory-over-transfield-misses-the-bigger-picture-24131">long history of supporting the arts</a>, including assisting in establishing the Biennale of Sydney. It has a stake in Transfield Services, which holds large contracts related to the immigration detention centre at Manus Island.</p>
<p>This relationship between Transfield and the Biennale of Sydney became the focus of protest as many artists, concerned about Australia’s policy of mandatory offshore detention, withdrew from the arts festival and many in the community called for the boycott. As a result, <a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-victory-over-transfield-misses-the-bigger-picture-24131">Luca Belgiorno-Nettis resigned last week</a> as chair of the festival and the Biennale of Sydney severed its longstanding ties with Transfield.</p>
<p>There have been two reactions to this – each being equally valid.</p>
<p>The first is the pro-boycott movement, which are celebrating. This has been a successful boycott supported by many within the refugee community. It has assisted in raising awareness within the broader community.</p>
<p>The second response is by those who actually are asking, “what has been achieved?”</p>
<p>The overwhelming likelihood is that Transfield will not cancel <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/business/transfield-services-shares-soar-after-it-wins-offshore-detention-centre-contract-20140224-33d1i.html">its contract</a> linked to the detention centre on Manus Island and what we have seen is a funding avenue compromised.</p>
<p>Some artists are voicing their concerns about feeling bullied. Others are acknowledging the freedom of artists to protest but are unhappy that in the process a long-term supporter of the arts has been singled out.</p>
<p>While I supported the boycott, I also saw a larger question being raised linked with my broader research: who should fund the arts?</p>
<p>This is a question the Biennale attempted to raise through <a href="http://www.biennaleofsydney.com.au/19bos/events/forum/">an event</a> dedicated to this very issue. I personally supported the event thinking that establishing such dialogue was exactly what such protests should encourage.</p>
<p>So who should fund the arts?</p>
<p>Maybe the government should be more active in funding such events through the <a href="http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/">Australia Council</a> – but as has been pointed out to me, it is the government that has established the Manus Island detention camps, not Transfield.</p>
<p>So where does that leave us?</p>
<p>That is the question that many are asking now – and no-one really knows how to answer – for there is no such thing as “clean money”.</p>
<p><br>
<strong>Further reading:</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-victory-over-transfield-misses-the-bigger-picture-24131">Artists’ victory over Transfield misses the bigger picture</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-biennale-transfield-and-the-value-of-boycott-24155">The Biennale, Transfield, and the value of boycott</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-artists-boycott-the-sydney-biennale-over-transfield-links-23067">Should artists boycott the Sydney Biennale over Transfield links?</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24159/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>James Arvanitakis receives funding from Australian Research Council and the Office of Learning and Teaching.
James was invited to speak at the Biennale event mentioned in this article but declined due to a prior commitment. </span></em></p>In the wake of the Sydney Biennale’s split from its major sponsor Transfield in recent days, certain uncomfortable questions are again floating very close to the surface. In the late 1990s, I had a successful…James Arvanitakis, Professor in Cultural and Social Analysis, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/241552014-03-09T01:27:06Z2014-03-09T01:27:06ZThe Biennale, Transfield, and the value of boycott<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43433/original/jz7hg4v7-1394326828.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Biennale's severing of ties with Transfield won’t change anything for those suffering on Manus Island right now. But gestures matter.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Department of Immigration and Citizenship/AAP</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>In July 1846, the American writer <a href="http://www.biography.com/people/henry-david-thoreau-9506784">Henry David Thoreau</a> went to prison for refusing to pay his poll tax. He couldn’t abide the thought that his money would be used, however indirectly, to perpetuate the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican-American_War">Mexican-American war</a> and the institution of slavery. “Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison,” Thoreau reasoned, and so that’s where he was.</p>
<p>Like <a href="http://thegazine.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/no-thoreau-was-not-a-hypocrite/">many things</a> in Thoreau’s life, his stint in jail was somewhat less impressive than he made it sound. He’d simply run into the tax collector by chance, who demanded six years’ worth of unpaid taxes. Thoreau refused, spent one night in a freshly-whitewashed cell, drank a pint of hot chocolate for breakfast, and was released against his will later that day when someone (probably his aunt) paid the tax for him.</p>
<p>Nothing changed. Both the war and slavery went on, unperturbed. The most significant outcome was Thoreau’s deeply influential essay <a href="http://xroads.virginia.edu/%7Ehyper/WALDEN/Essays/civil.html">Civil Disobedience</a>, an ongoing source of inspiration to anti-statist activists from the anarchist left to the libertarian right.</p>
<p>Four decades later, the people of Lough Mask in Ireland began a campaign of ostracisation against Lord Erne’s local land agent – a certain <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=ooS47L8V7nsC&pg=PA26&lpg=PA26&dq=charles+boycott+letter+to+the+times&source=bl&ots=zkDzV0OfT6&sig=75FrVEzNcLBG-JAkqnn-z34NGfM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=OmwaU57SBsWPrgfr5IDwDA&ved=0CDQQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=charles%20boycott%20letter%20to%20the%20times&f=false">Captain Charles Boycott</a>. The British ultimately used troops to guard the Orangemen brought down to harvest Erne’s crops (at 20 times the cost of what the crops were worth). But in the process the English language acquired a useful new verb.</p>
<p>But is the practice of boycotting as useful as the word? Are withdrawals of support such as Thoreau’s morally valuable acts of defiance or mere self-indulgent theatre?</p>
<p>The news that the Sydney Biennale has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/mar/07/sydney-biennale-chairman-quits-transfield-detention">severed all links with Transfield Holdings</a>, including accepting <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/arts/biennale-of-sydney-future-in-doubt-as-chairman-luca-belgiornonettis-resigns-over-disputed-links-to-detention-centres/story-fniv7r7y-1226848360250">the resignation</a> of its chairman <a href="http://www.transfield.com.au/luca-belgiorno-nettis-am">Luca Belgiorno-Nettis</a> (who remains Transfield’s director), throws all these issues into relief.</p>
<p>Like Transfield itself, the Biennale was founded by Luca Belgiorno-Nettis’ father Franco (who had earlier established the <a href="http://www.arttransfield.com/the-collection/the-transfield-art-prize">Transfield Art Prize</a>). No-one disputes, therefore, that Transfield has been a deeply valuable benefactor of the arts. As recently as late February, the Biennale board was <a href="http://www.biennaleofsydney.com.au/blog/2014/02/22/response-from-the-biennale-of-sydney-board-to-the-working-group/">insisting it could not survive</a> without Transfield.</p>
<p>But Transfield’s subsidiary, Transfield Services, operates the Australian government’s immigration detention facility in Nauru, and <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/construction-company-transfield-to-be-paid-122b-to-run-offshore-detention-20140224-33bs5.html">has just signed a A$1.22 billion contract</a> to run the Manus Island facility in PNG as well. Protests against Transfield’s involvement with the Biennale had been gathering steam for weeks. Nine artists had withdrawn from the event altogether.</p>
<p>In the statement announcing his resignation, Belgiorno-Nettis <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/mar/07/sydney-biennale-chairman-quits-transfield-detention">complained</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There would appear to be little room for sensible dialogue, let alone deliberation. Yesterday I learnt that some international government agencies are beginning to question the decision of the Biennale’s board to stand by Transfield. </p>
<p>Biennale staff have been verbally abused with taunts of “blood on your hands”. I have been personally vilified with insults, which I regard as naïve and offensive. This situation is entirely unfair – especially when directed towards our dedicated Biennale team who give so much of themselves.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As the reference to Biennale staff reminds us, ethical decisions are never made in a vacuum. We moral philosophers like our thought-experiments <a href="http://www.philosophyexperiments.com/fatman/">artificially clean and simple</a>: strip out all the messy, extraneous stuff and display the moral problem in its clarity and purity. Real-life moral dilemmas aren’t like that: the truth, <a href="http://books.google.com.au/books?id=4HIWAAAAYAAJ&printsec=frontcover&dq=importance+of+being+earnest&hl=en&sa=X&ei=1VgaU_LpHIahiAefv4GoAQ&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=rarely%20pure&f=false">as Wilde quipped</a>, is rarely pure and never simple. It would be silly to ignore the fact there are livelihoods and careers involved here, and real costs to each if the event folds.</p>
<p>Villains are rarely as pure as we’d like them to be either. <a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-victory-over-transfield-misses-the-bigger-picture-24131">Writing on The Conversation, Joanna Mendelssohn notes</a> that Luca Belgiorno-Nettis is:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>by any measure a major patron of the arts on a personal level and one of the great subtle thinkers in modern Australia.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>And yet, he profits from what can only be called systematic cruelty.</p>
<p>As an act of protest, the decision to boycott an arts festival may seem decidedly sub-Thoreavian. There are certainly real costs involved to the protesters, but no-one’s going to prison. Moreover, it’s no doubt impossible for even the most well-meaning boycotter to achieve complete disentanglement here either. </p>
<p>Other sources of funding are also likely to be ethically tainted too – is taking part in the Sydney Festival, which <a href="http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/News/Festival-News/The-Star-announced-as-Principal-Sponsor/">has a casino as its principal sponsor</a>, an endorsement of the gambling industry, for instance?</p>
<p>Presumably the local artists who threatened to boycott the Biennale still pay their taxes too. We’re still paying for Manus whoever gets the contract. (Even Thoreau continued to pay the Highway Tax, because “I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject.”)</p>
<p>And of course, none of this will move the needle one bit on asylum seeker detention policy, any more than Thoreau’s theatrics stopped the war against Mexico. </p>
<p>His belief that even a minority “is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight” sounds wildly optimistic, then as now. Australia seems determined to punish asylum seekers for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/drowning-mercy-why-we-fear-the-boats-16394">unforgivable crime</a> of disturbing our three-big-tellies-and-two-cars-in-the-driveway complacency. </p>
<p>As Waleed Aly <a href="http://www.theage.com.au/comment/the-logic-of-png-policy-is-sanctioned-horror-20140220-333so.html">put it in a grimly eloquent piece recently</a>, “The political truth is that there is almost nothing any government could do that the electorate would deem too brutal” when it comes to detainees. A few artists pulling out of a festival is unlikely to get much traction in the suburbs of Western Sydney (which, as we learned during the last election campaign, is apparently the entirety of Australia).</p>
<p>And yet.</p>
<p>And yet, a group of individuals stood up, at some cost to themselves, to withdraw their implicit support of a company that makes money from our brutalisation of the most vulnerable. And they won.</p>
<p>The board’s statement suggest it’s reacting to pressure rather than acting from genuine ethical concern, and Belgiorno-Nettis’ comments aren’t exactly a study in contrition. When the sun came up Saturday he was still director of Transfield Holdings, and Transfield Services was still running detention camps for profit.</p>
<p>But even so, the Biennale board has chosen a course of action that, on its own admission, puts its survival in doubt. I’ve <a href="https://theconversation.com/ethics-is-a-jealous-god-self-regulation-vs-self-sacrifice-14298">said here before</a> that we need more turkeys prepared to vote for Christmas. Perhaps we’ve found some. Perhaps.</p>
<p>Whatever the complexities, and however limited the impact, there was, at least, a moment, here in 2014, where the idea that misery outweighs money won some sort of victory.</p>
<p>It won’t change much. It won’t change anything at all for those suffering on Manus and Nauru right now. Some will call it merely symbolic, an empty gesture. But gestures matter. Symbols matter.</p>
<p>Thoreau died of TB at the age of 44, too soon to see the <a href="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured_documents/emancipation_proclamation/">Emancipation Proclamation</a> – by just eight months. History can be quicker than you think.</p>
<p><br>
<em>Please leave your comments on this story below.</em></p>
<p><em>Are you an academic or researcher? Would you like to respond to the Biennale of Sydney and Transfield story? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor</a>.</em>
<br></p>
<p><strong>Further reading:</strong><br></p>
<p><a href="https://theconversation.com/luca-belgiorno-nettis-should-just-buy-a-yacht-24355">Luca Belgiorno-Nettis should just buy a yacht</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-should-value-the-biennale-protest-not-threaten-arts-funding-24333">We should value the Biennale protest, not threaten arts funding</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-there-any-clean-money-left-to-fund-the-arts-24159">Is there any clean money left to fund the arts?</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/artists-victory-over-transfield-misses-the-bigger-picture-24131">Artists’ victory over Transfield misses the bigger picture</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-artists-boycott-the-sydney-biennale-over-transfield-links-23067">Should artists boycott the Sydney Biennale over Transfield links?</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24155/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Patrick Stokes does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In July 1846, the American writer Henry David Thoreau went to prison for refusing to pay his poll tax. He couldn’t abide the thought that his money would be used, however indirectly, to perpetuate the…Patrick Stokes, Lecturer in Philosophy, Deakin UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/241312014-03-08T04:16:19Z2014-03-08T04:16:19ZArtists’ victory over Transfield misses the bigger picture<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43430/original/x46pbcr3-1394252045.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">It is infantile to pick on one holding company while ignoring the central role of the Australian government.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Eoin Blackwell/AAP Image</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Biennale of Sydney, which begins on March 21, has announced it will sever ties with its founding partner Transfield, following <a href="https://theconversation.com/should-artists-boycott-the-sydney-biennale-over-transfield-links-23067">weeks of pressure</a> from artists angered by the company’s links to Australia’s offshore detention centres.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.transfield.com.au/luca-belgiorno-nettis-am">Luca Belgiorno-Nettis</a>, director of <a href="http://www.transfield.com.au/">Transfield Holdings</a>, has also <a href="http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/entertainment/arts/biennale-of-sydney-future-in-doubt-as-chairman-luca-belgiornonettis-resigns-over-disputed-links-to-detention-centres/story-fniv7r7y-1226848360250">resigned</a> as chairman of the event.</p>
<p>Nine Australian and international artists, including Olafur Olafsson, <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/art-and-design/matters-of-principle-and-protest-20140307-34d9t.html">had pulled out</a> from the Biennale in protest at the event’s sponsorship deal with Transfield Holdings. The company has a stake in <a href="http://www.transfieldservices.com/">Transfield Services</a>, which was recently granted a contract last week to operate a detention centre on Manus Island.</p>
<p>How the event will be funded going forward is now unclear.</p>
<p>In its statement, the Biennale board said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>We have listened to the artists who are the heart of the Biennale and have decided to end our partnership with Transfield effective immediately.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The original Transfield, under its founder <a href="http://www.australianbiography.gov.au/subjects/belgiorno/bio.html">Franco Belgiorno-Nettis</a>, initiated the Biennale in 1973. The first Biennale was at the Sydney Opera House as a part of the opening ceremonies. It was opened by Prime Minister Gough Whitlam who had not been invited to the Opera House opening by the Queen (NSW had a Liberal government, enough said). </p>
<p>It is fair to say that Franco Belgiorno-Nettis was able to leverage his patronage of the Biennale and other cultural activities to foster informal connections to the most powerful people in the country. Transfield was then a construction company, pure and simple (it was <a href="http://www.transfield.com.au/sydney-harbour-tunnel">one of the joint venturers</a> to build the Sydney Harbour Tunnel) . </p>
<p>Connections are, after all, one of the reasons for arts patronage. The subtle patrons use their connections well. The great value of visual arts events is that it is easy to have conversations while looking at art – opera and theatre tend to demand silence except at interval. This is different from crude acts of sponsorship such as those by large mining or oil companies which use the arts to polish their corporate image.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43424/original/dmrt3dry-1394239919.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43424/original/dmrt3dry-1394239919.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43424/original/dmrt3dry-1394239919.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43424/original/dmrt3dry-1394239919.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43424/original/dmrt3dry-1394239919.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=367&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43424/original/dmrt3dry-1394239919.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43424/original/dmrt3dry-1394239919.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43424/original/dmrt3dry-1394239919.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=462&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Art family the Belgiorno-Nettis (L-R:) Guido, Luca and Amina Belgiorno-Nettis at the Art Gallery of NSW for the announcement of their A$4 million donation to the gallery in Sydney, in 2007.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tracey Nearmy/AAP Image</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Time has moved on. Franco died eight years ago. Transfield is now a very large and complex series of companies. <a href="http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/people/person.asp?personId=2972540&ticker=TSE:AU">Luca Belgiorno-Nettis</a> is a director of Transfield Holdings. Transfield Services, the company that is now operating some of Australia’s detention camps, is a separate subsidiary. </p>
<p>Luca Belgiorno-Nettis is not a part of Transfield Services. He is by any measure a major patron of the arts on a personal level and one of the great subtle thinkers in modern Australia. He is behind the <a href="http://www.newdemocracy.com.au/">newDemocracy Foundation</a>, which aims to create a climate of intelligent debate and decision-making in this country. </p>
<p>In what can only be described as one of life’s little ironies “intelligent debate” has not been one of the characteristics of the current controversy. </p>
<p>As well as Transfield, the <a href="http://www.biennaleofsydney.com.au/19bos/support-us/current-partners/">major supporter</a> of the Biennale of Sydney is the <a href="http://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/">Australia Council</a>. While it participated in the 1973 exhibition, its significant financial support dates from the second Biennale in 1976 (for some years Sydney had the only Biennale in the world that ran once every three years). The Australia Council develops its policies at arms length from government but it remains wholly funded by the Australian Government. </p>
<p>In a very real sense, artists receiving Australia Council money are taking government money. So from my perspective it is quite reasonable for non-Australian artists to be so appalled by the acts of both the Australian government and their contractors that they remove themselves from the Biennale. It is reasonable to assume they would not know that our government runs concentration camps in our name, and has done so for many years. </p>
<p>However their protest will be somewhat hypocritical if they renew their connection with the Biennale now that Transfield has left. This is especially as Luca’s brother, <a href="http://www.transfield.com.au/guido-belgiorno-nettis-am">Guido Belgiorno-Nettis</a>, also a director of Transfield Holdings, is the <a href="http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/about-us/people/agnsw-trust/">President of the Trustees</a> of the Art Gallery of New South Wales, the principal venue for the Biennale.</p>
<p>Australian artists are in a different category. Australia has been imprisoning refugees since 1992, shortly after the first Iraq War. In 2001 the Tampa election made hostility to those fleeing conflict official policy. </p>
<p>As an aside, it’s worth remembering also that <a href="http://www.santos.com/Blog/archive/2009/11/24/20.aspx">Santos</a> and ARCO became major sponsors of state government art galleries in the late 1980s and early 1990s, just as mega-exploration was taking off. In the catalogue of <a href="http://www.qagoma.qld.gov.au/research/publications/past/balance_1990">Balance 1990</a>, Queensland Art Gallery’s seminal exhibition of Aboriginal art, ARCO Coal Australia Inc. is “thanked for its substantial financial support which enabled works to be purchased directly from artists during the tour to remote areas”. Whenever those <a href="http://mobile.qagoma.qld.gov.au/exhibitions/current/voice_and_reason">now iconic works of art are reproduced</a>or are on view, ARCO’s support is honoured.</p>
<p>The last election confirmed that both major political parties have lost their moral compass. The current mood by people of good will is despair.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43426/original/72q9gfx5-1394241115.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43426/original/72q9gfx5-1394241115.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/43426/original/72q9gfx5-1394241115.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43426/original/72q9gfx5-1394241115.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43426/original/72q9gfx5-1394241115.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=392&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43426/original/72q9gfx5-1394241115.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43426/original/72q9gfx5-1394241115.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/43426/original/72q9gfx5-1394241115.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=492&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">An artwork by American artist Sam Durant stands in front of Museum of Contemporary Art overlooking the Sydney Opera House as part of the 2008 Biennale of Sydney.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tracey Nearmy/AAP Image</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It would be good to see artists in the Biennale use their position to foster a conversation on what is happening in Australia now. It is however silly and infantile to pick on one holding company of one of the camp operators while ignoring the central role of the Australian government which is directing the whole disaster.</p>
<p>I would have thought the intelligent response for local artists would be to make works that reflect the dilemma of people living in a country once thought of as a utopia but is now transforming itself into a dystopia. Take their money and use it to do good.</p>
<p>One of the big issues that is not being discussed here is that our government is effectively outsourcing many of the operations that have traditionally been a part of the core business of governing. It is fairly clear, from the <a href="http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/35m-spent-on-manus-island-detention-centres-kitchen-defended-20140302-33u0x.html">amounts of money being thrown around</a>, that they aren’t doing this as a cost-saving activity. </p>
<p>Rather it is clear that by outsourcing the more distasteful aspects of government they are setting up private companies as future scapegoats, and in doing so hoping to avoid the consequences of their own decisions. </p>
<p>I’d also like to emphasise that as well as being committed to maintaining their father’s initiative in giving Australia a place in the contemporary art scene, the next generation of the Belgiorno-Nettis family have a personal passionate involvement in the arts. Luca’s wife, Anita, was the executive producer for the film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0865297/">The Black Balloon</a> (2008), Elissa Down’s film about autism and teenage love. Look closely at the opening scene. </p>
<p>A middled aged couple are walking their dog, and look at the family moving in across the road. The couple are Anita and Luca doing an Alfred Hitchcock moment.</p>
<p><br>
<em>Please leave your comments on this story below.</em></p>
<p><em>Are you an academic or researcher? Would you like to respond to the Biennale of Sydney and Transfield story? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor</a>.</em></p>
<p><br>
<em>This article was updated on March 9, 2014. A reference to “concentration camps” was changed to “detention camps”.</em></p>
<p><br>
<strong>Further reading:</strong><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/luca-belgiorno-nettis-should-just-buy-a-yacht-24355">Luca Belgiorno-Nettis should just buy a yacht</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/we-should-value-the-biennale-protest-not-threaten-arts-funding-24333">We should value the Biennale protest, not threaten arts funding</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/is-there-any-clean-money-left-to-fund-the-arts-24159">Is there any clean money left to fund the arts?</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-biennale-transfield-and-the-value-of-boycott-24155">The Biennale, Transfield, and the value of boycott</a><br>
<a href="https://theconversation.com/should-artists-boycott-the-sydney-biennale-over-transfield-links-23067">Should artists boycott the Sydney Biennale over Transfield links?</a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24131/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Joanna Mendelssohn receives funding from the ARC through a Linkage Project on the History of Exhibitions of Australian Art and a LIEF grant for Design and Art of Australia Online.</span></em></p>The Biennale of Sydney, which begins on March 21, has announced it will sever ties with its founding partner Transfield, following weeks of pressure from artists angered by the company’s links to Australia’s…Joanna Mendelssohn, Program Director, Art Administration, School of Art History and Art Education. Editor in Chief, Design and Art of Australia Online, UNSW SydneyLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/230672014-02-11T19:34:45Z2014-02-11T19:34:45ZShould artists boycott the Sydney Biennale over Transfield links?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41187/original/vhbw69h8-1392073824.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Should artists refuse to work with the Sydney Biennale – whose major sponsor has contracts to operate offshore detention centres?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AAP Image/Caris Bizzaca</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Sydney will host its 19th biennale from March 21. It’s one of the most significant international art events on the local calendar. But questions have arisen over its connection to Australia’s policy of interning asylum seekers who arrive by boat without a visa.</p>
<p>The <a href="http://xborderoperationalmatters.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/sydney-biennale-transfield/http://xborderoperationalmatters.wordpress.com/2014/02/02/sydney-biennale-transfield/">Biennale of Sydney’s major sponsor is Transfield</a>, a company which is also a major contractor involved in running detention centres on Nauru and Manus Island. It recently announced <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/feb/03/construction-company-set-to-take-over-salvos-asylum-seeker-welfare-services">plans</a> to take on more work at these centres.</p>
<p>My own awareness of this connection occurred in the context of my work as a Sydney-based academic and tertiary design educator. </p>
<p>After receiving marketing from the Biennale and a suggestion to take my students to the event I was faced with a clear choice: could I support an event funded by profits of mandatory detention, a policy slammed by the UNHCR as <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-11-27/unhcr-report-on-nauru/5118588">inhumane</a> and non-compliant with international law? My answer: <a href="http://xborderoperationalmatters.wordpress.com/2014/02/04/art-educators-biennale/">emphatically, no</a>.</p>
<p>The news of Transfield’s involvement in the Biennale has been met with shock, disappointment and disgust, and the call for a boycott is gaining traction, as reported in <a href="http://www.artshub.com.au/news-article/feature/all-arts/sydney-biennale-faces-transfield-boycott-threat-198020">artsHub</a> and <a href="http://www.excerptmagazine.com/blog/the-19th-biennale-of-sydney-their-partner-transfield">Excerpt Magazine</a> recently. Artists and patrons are expressing their intent to boycott on social media, and the Biennale’s Twitter hashtag, <a href="https://twitter.com/search?q=%2319bos&src=typd">#19BOS</a>, is dominated by the issue.</p>
<p>The Biennale <a href="https://twitter.com/biennalesydney/status/431251979986534402">responded</a> last week on Twitter and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/biennaleofsydney">on Facebook</a>, arguing that a boycott would “deny the legitimate voice of BOS artists”. While Transfield delivers profits to shareholders from its detention centre contracts, it is the people, some of whom are indeed <a href="http://therefugeeartproject.com/home/">artists</a>, detained at Nauru and Manus Island by the Department of Immigration who are truly silenced. The Biennale’s comments have angered refugee advocates. </p>
<p>“Are you insinuating that our voice is illegitimate?” was the <a href="https://twitter.com/riserefugee/status/431413331388141570">response</a> last week to the Biennale from Melbourne-based organisation RISE: Refugees, Survivors & Ex-detainees.</p>
<h2>Protest or boycott?</h2>
<p>On the question of whether protests by artists, rather than a boycott, would generate a more engaged response, we must learn a lesson from 2012. </p>
<p>During the 18th Biennale of Sydney Melbourne artist Van Thanh Rudd made a protest artwork about the treatment of asylum seekers, as did Sydney artist Jacqueline Drinkall.</p>
<p>Drinkall’s work was staged on Cockatoo Island, the Biennale’s main venue, where, with the help of Occupy Sydney participants, she attempted to burn a $20 note in front of a Transfield logo.</p>
<p>Rudd, located in Melbourne, placed hyper-real sculptural representations of <a href="http://vanthanhrudd.wordpress.com/2012/09/18/artwork-in-flames/">detainees in public spaces</a>. This year he is a <a href="http://vanthanhrudd.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/supporting-the-call-to-boycott-the-19th-biennale-of-sydney-2014/">strong supporter</a> of the boycott.</p>
<p>Since 2012, Transfield has increased its involvement in detention centre work. </p>
<p>So, for how long will the arts community accept detention-centre funding for a major event such as the Sydney Biennale?</p>
<h2>The limits of a boycott</h2>
<p>Transfield is an enormous business, involved in many aspects of Australian life, including public transport. Should those calling for a boycott of the Biennale also boycott public transport? </p>
<p>This is a fair question, and speaks to a disturbing fact. The internment-industrial-complex has become so extensive that we are all implicated in it. It is in our superannuation, our trains, our waste management, our art and more. </p>
<p>There is a risk of being immobilised by this totality, an effect, University of Sydney researcher Angela Mitropolous <a href="https://medium.com/p/b71a3868589a">argues</a>, of a system that fosters a constant shifting of risk and blame. </p>
<p>Equally though, Mitropolous suggests that our being implicated is also a source of resistance – provided we choose to rethink our responsibilities and ability to act. In this sense, while I may not be able to give up using public transport, I can resist Transfield through my work in the arts industry, a tactic that social researcher Ann Deslandes has <a href="https://www.newmatilda.com/2014/02/05/lets-down-tools-migrants-and-refugees">suggested</a> may be effective for many more of us.</p>
<p>In making my own decision I weighed the potential sacrifice and risk on my part for boycotting a major arts event against the conditions faced by those <a href="http://serco-story.theglobalmail.org/">in detention</a>, along with the very real prospect of things getting worse. </p>
<p>For me, the choice was clear. There is no way that I, as an academic, educator, and patron of the arts could use my position to support an event funded by profits made from detention centres. </p>
<p>Each of us has a unique position in this. </p>
<p>I feel particularly for those artists who signed up to the Biennale in good faith and are now confronting a difficult choice. Their decision will be influenced by the level of community support the call to step away receives, pointing to the collective nature of the effort to boycott the Biennale. </p>
<p>This is part of a longer project. We need to build new infrastructures of support for each other, ones that do not rely upon the enforced misery of others. We have to start that process somewhere, and for those of us who work in or participate in the arts sector, there appears to be no better time to do that than right now.</p>
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<em>Are you an academic or researcher working on arts philanthropy and sponsorship? Would you like to write for The Conversation? Contact the <a href="mailto:paul.dalgarno@theconversation.edu.au">Arts + Culture editor</a>.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23067/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Matthew Kiem does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Sydney will host its 19th biennale from March 21. It’s one of the most significant international art events on the local calendar. But questions have arisen over its connection to Australia’s policy of…Matthew Kiem, PhD candidate, Lecturer/tutor, Western Sydney UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.