Artists for Palestine UK (APUK) is a growing network of artists and cultural workers standing together for Palestinian rights and a just resolution for all in Israel/Palestine, including Palestinian refugees.
We came across their network while spreading the word about the Online Event “LIVE FOR GAZA” organized to support Palestinian Musicians through the Delia Arts Center in Gaza. We were impressed by their vision which they believe that arts have an immense impact on mobilizing audiences towards achieving freedom, equality, and dignity for all people.
APUK have been working on raising awareness of the issues that Palestinian artists face every day. They promote cultural events that foreground Palestinian artists, writers and thinkers, and their collaborations with British artists to reach new audiences.
We were excited to reach out to them, and they became our first supporters of both our missions and the online event “LIVE FOR GAZA.”
We asked them a few questions to get to know them better and solidify our connections.
Can you tell us more about the history of the Artists for Palestine UK?
Though the network of artists we’ve created is extensive, APUK’s day-to-day working group is relatively small. Most of us are women. Most of us have worked in theatre or film, or visual arts. We come from diverse backgrounds – from Britain to South Africa to South Asia. Some of us have experience working with Palestinian artists and cultural organizations. We understand how central art can be a means of asserting identities, resisting oppression, experimenting with new possibilities.
All of us have a sense of the long injustices of colonialism. The situation of Palestinians seems to us another terrible and continuing chapter in that history. The UK’s official attitude to Palestinians – a mix of indifference, hypocrisy, and hostility – drives us to anger.
As a working group, we came together in the years between the two attacks on Gaza (2008/9 and 2014), which caused such destruction and such feelings of powerlessness. The contrast between the suffering of Gaza and the willingness of the British government and some cultural institutions to continue ‘business as usual with the state that had brought about that destruction seemed intolerable to us. Artists should respond collectively, we thought, when cultural workers in Palestine called on those in other countries to speak out.
When we launched our campaign, we found that many artists in the UK agreed with us. More than 1000 – visual artists, writers, actors, playwrights, musicians, film directors – have put their name to a pledge supporting the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice, and equality. They have said that they will accept ‘neither professional invitations to Israel, nor funding, from any institutions linked to its government until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights.
Our partners in APUK works in the midst of a very vocal cultural environment. Artists speak out on their own initiative; solidarity is integral to their art. We’re not a ‘lonely’ organization – we’re one part of a movement that has contributed to making the cause of Palestine a real presence in British cultural life. And in this, we try to listen to Palestinian voices and amplify what they are saying about culture, identity, art, and occupation.
Our projects have been covered in leading newspapers and cultural magazines. We have ‘appeared’ at large festivals like Edinburgh and Palexpo. We have worked with other organizations concerned about the ethics of artistic production in a cultural world dominated by the interests of corporations and governments. We have taken every opportunity to support Palestinian artists – protesting when they have been denied entry to Britain, setting up discussions, publicizing performances and exhibitions. Working often with PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, who have been with us since the beginning, we have sought to persuade artists that they should not perform in a society where inequality and oppression are institutionalized. We try to achieve this by setting up (public and private) conversations between artists about the right thing to do when you receive an alluring invitation to perform in an oppressive state. Op-eds and open letters (signed by many) are part of the conversation. Sometimes we have been successful in this, and sometimes not, but our case has gained wide publicity in Britain and internationally even where our persuasion hasn’t worked. We’ve shown that making and performing art isn’t separate from broader issues of ethics and justice.
What are your aims in the next few years? Are you experiencing support from the international community?
We see ourselves as part of an international movement. We speak the same language of solidarity as fellow artists in Ireland, Germany, South Africa, the United States. Our connection to PACBI is vital to our work – it’s a network through which so much news and information, so many stories of activity and resistance flow.
We want to convince artists of the truth of what has happened in Palestine, and we want to persuade them to act based on that conviction. We want to develop effective ways of supporting artists in Palestine – which is one reason why we were so pleased to support the Delia Arts Centre’s recent event. Technically and musically, it was one of the best examples of how we can ‘annihilate distance’ and bring artists/audiences together. Injustice divides; the pursuit of dignity, human rights, and free cultural expression can unite us.
Today, we are witnessing first-hand the obstacles that Palestinian people are facing. We must continue to support artists as they are the pillars of society. Arts have shown us repeatedly that its purpose is not solely to entertain but to build strong communities and values. Organizations and institutions have the moral obligation to keep supporting groups such as the Artists for Palestine UK to keep supporting the communities in Palestine with the most peaceful tool; arts.
To find out more about Artists for Palestine UK, please visit their website :
