Fault lines across Australian cultural organisations after the horror in Israel and Gaza

Open letters. Board resignations. Divestments and boycotts. The past two months have seen roiling conflict and deep division in Australian culture as artists, administrators and audiences struggle to come to terms with the horror in Israel and Gaza. 

The events have resulted in a wide-ranging realignment of global political sensitivities. Artists have responded, drawing protest and reaction in turn. Just as in the media, universities and many parts of civil society, the conflagration has opened deep rifts in Australia’s cultural scene, pitting wealthy donors amongst the elite of Australian arts philanthropy against artists speaking out against Israel’s siege of the Gaza strip and beyond. 

The most prominent recent action was by three actors in the Sydney Theatre Company production of The Seagull, Mabel Li, Harry Greenwood and Megan Wilding. The trio donned keffiyehs in support of Palestine during the curtain call for the STC production on November 25. 

The public display sparked a fierce backlash amongst STC donors and subscribers. A flurry of letters were sent to the STC Board. Prominent donors, including Judi Hausmann and Alex Schuman, have resigned from the company’s philanthropic foundation. The protest also triggered a blizzard of media attention from the Nine newspapers and The Australian. STC has been in damage control mode since, issuing no fewer than three apologies and cancelling a performance of The Seagull. 

STC’s keffiyeh dramas are mirrored across many organisations in Australian arts and culture. As artists and cultural figures have responded to the horror, signing open letters, marching in rallies, and painting banners, wealthy donors to the arts who have been offended, enraged or hurt have divested and boycotted. 

At Melbourne’s trendy contemporary arts precinct Collingwood Yards, for instance, a major funding tranche was rescinded by prominent law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler. The money was withdrawn in response to a banner-making workshop held by local Melbourne collective This Mob held at Collingwood Yards on October 24th. Some of the signs produced called for the abolition of Israel, one labelled Israelis “dumb white dogs”. Others cited the decades-old chant “from the river to the sea”. In response, Arnold Bloch Leibler boss Mark Leibler pulled all the firm’s funding to Collingwood Yards. 

In a letter to Collingwood Yards chairwoman Miriam Silva, Leibler wrote of his “great despair”, withdrew the firm’s representation on the Collingwood Yards board, and asked for the erasure of “all references to Arnold Bloch Leibler on your website, associated collateral including in the courtyard where the incident occurred.” Arnold Bloch Leibler had contributed more than $1 million in pro bono legal advice as well as “substantial” cash donations to the organisation. 

Leibler has also withdrawn support from artists’ peak body, the National Association of Visual Artists (NAVA), after the organisation supported an open letter addressed to Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Arts Minister Tony Burke via Overland. The October 21 letter called for “an immediate stop to the genocide in Gaza”. Executive director Penelope Benton confirmed to Crikey that ABL had cut ties with NAVA, establishing a new legal partnership with another firm. “NAVA has a history of amplifying artists’ voices and ensuring they are heard,” Benton noted.

Over at the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art (ACCA), artists James Nguyen and Tamsen Hopkinson painted over their exhibition HuiHụi in black plant and “turned off the lights” in a statement of solidarity with Palestine. 

“Our work HuiHụi was conceived as a meeting space for negotiation and exchange,” Ngyuen explained via an Instagram post. “As an extension of our work; our position against violent settler colonisation and in unwavering solidarity with the Palestinian people we have decided to paint over our work and turn off the lights.”

These actions coincided with the resignation of arts lawyer and curator Alana Kushnir from ACCA’s board, following complaints relating to social media posts made by Kushnir since October 7 that were critical of artists who had made statements supportive of Palestine, plus at least two competing open letters pitting statements of support for opposing sides of the conflict. ACCA’s board told Crikey that Kushnir’s resignation followed “a number of internal discussions and meetings related to social media activity and the board of directors’ code of conduct”.

Kushnir was not approached for comment for this piece but she offered a statement after publication expressing her disappointment in the ACCA.

“I think it’s particularly disappointing that ACCA is using my decision to resign from the Board of Directors as an opportunity to twist the truth, and to throw me – its only (now former) Jewish board member – under the bus to save face,” Kushnir told Crikey. 

She claimed that one “impromptu” and un-minuted meeting was called and it did not address the Code of Conduct for Board Members, as ACCA has alleged. Kushnir said no evidence was presented to substantiate the “very serious allegations that the CEO and certain board members had made” against her. 

Kushnir said she has a right to express her “offence when inflammatory language is used to incite hatred of Jewish people and Israel, and to pull up those who suggest that the barbaric attacks of Hamas on October 7th were justified”.

The turmoil has clearly spooked cultural organisations yet to be caught in the crossfire. Sources tell Crikey that Melbourne’s Abbotsford Convent has told staff to call police should they witness anyone placing printed material linked to protests or the ongoing conflict anywhere on the organisation’s grounds. 

It’s not surprising that artists and cultural figures have been drawn into the turmoil of the conflict. Culture has been a target all along. The current violence began on October 7 with the massacre by Hamas militants of 1,200 people in southern Israel, including more than 300 dance partygoers at the Supernova music festival in southern Israel. In retaliation and as part of Israel’s wider siege on Gaza and beyond, Palestinian cultural institutions have been a repeated target of the Israel Defence Forces. Celebrated Palestinian poets, artists and writers have been killed. Israel has targeted Gaza’s main university, the Islamic University, and its president has been killed in a bombing raid.  

The political economy of the emerging division is also instructive. The pro-Israel lobby in Australia is well-resourced and highly connected, as Adelaide Writers Week director Louise Adler pointed out in an ABC interview this week. In contrast, few powerful voices are speaking up for Palestinian interests. As the ABC’s Laura Tingle noted this week, “three young actors on one side of the equation. The full power of the media and arts funding establishment on the other.”  

STC’s latest statement on November 29 shows the difficulties posed for arts administrators. It offered a rather confused mix of apology for “the actions at the curtain call and our immediate response” with equivocal support for individual freedom of expression. “We support individual freedom of expression”, the statement continues, “but believe that the right to free speech does not supersede our responsibility to create safe workplaces and theatres”. 

In fact, the keffiyeh protest during The Seagull was not the first statement about the war in Gaza mounted by STC performers. During the last two weeks of STC’s tour of The Visitors, the cast collectively decided to share a statement on the increasing situation in Gaza, drawing on parallels between, in their words, “here and there and the plight of First Peoples and their homelands”. 

The statement was delivered following the curtain call on November 2. It drew comparatively little attention. Elaine Crombie, one of the cast of The Visitors, told us that no one from STC had since reached out to her directly.

“Actors have a right to speak out about politics,” Crombie observed. “That’s how we interrogate what is happening in the world, how we look at situations and realise that people fail us.”

Crombie points out that theatre is an inherently emotional and symbolic art form. 

“Right now we are not motivated by anything other than the pain and suffering of others, because we are here for humanity.”

“If what I do or have done or how I am speaking out now — if that jeopardises me being employed, I am obviously not meant for you. If what I say is going to ruffle your feathers, don’t look in my direction, because I will still be over here screaming about children losing limbs, about mothers losing children. That’s the core of this issue.”