AVALANCHE

SUSPIRIA  ⁙  POPCORN  ⁙  TREATS  ⁙  8PM⁙  31 OCTOBER 

'The only thing more terrifying than the last 12 minutes of this film are the first 92'.

A screening of Dario Argento’s classic, pink-hued 1977 horror, Suspiria. 

Artists' Union England

London Branch Meeting | TBC November 2017

Richard Whitby and Millicent Hawk will introduce Artists' Union England and discuss our campaigns, objectives and how the Union is working alongside other cultural unions towards gaining fair pay and better working conditions for artists.  Members and non-members are invited.

Artists’ Union England is a new trade union for professional visual and applied artists.  Unlike other cultural professionals, artists have had no collective voice in the form of a trade union, to represent them at work and to lobby and advocate on their behalf.  As a trade union, run by volunteers, we represent artists at strategic decision-making levels and positively influence the value and role artists play within society.

Apply online to become a member or find out more on our About page.

HALLOWEEN

gremlins  ⁙  popcorn  ⁙  avalanche  ⁙  9pm  ⁙  31 October 16

BOYCOTT OR NOT

Failing Criticality: white cube as whitewash

Sunday 12 June  12-1.30pm

Avalanche at The Field, New Cross SE14 5HD

Part of AntiUniversity Now Festival 9-12 June 2016

TICKETS THROUGH EVENTBRITE

At the level of the individual, how can responsibility for a political stand become effective, and, when organised, might solidarity between artists and individuals - united during austerity - bring about mobilisation, a consolidated push both for human rights internationally and for functioning public services and funding that have been marginalised here in the UK?

Art sponsorship, Collections and Trusts frequently appear to legitimise, through cultural acceptance, corporate interests with questionable ethics that further compound the problems citizens face through their lobbying of government for corporate/personal gain that have ramifications on local, national and international politics.  Human rights, our environment, our education and our health are all at stake.

In openly questioning individual and collaborative interests around the funding of art and the lobbying of government, Boycott or Not aims to discover the level of duplicity that artists as individuals and as a group are willing to engage.  And - failing criticality - is art a PR and marketing strategy for a wealthy elite and ruling class that increasingly fail us all?

Boycotts are generally understood as a public manoeuvre to empower citizens through organisation by way of non-violent political expression.  In this open discussion the ever-increasing problematic enmeshment of ethics and the politics of art funding will be raised - sighting arguments from ‘philanthropic’ donations to a Tory government that's championing the cuts to the widely discussed Boycott Zabludowicz (BDZ Group) following PACBI guidelines and boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, as well as to consider compassion for individual needs to meet basic financial obligations - 'My poverty, but not my will, consents.'*

Introductions will include artists representing political groups and unions - Artists for Palestine, BDZ Group, Art Not Oil Coalition and Artists' Union England - before discussion is opened to the room.  Critical discussion will include the implications of, and the resistance against, exclusively wealth-based interests, seen by many to engender power through binary and division - by class, race and sex.  Here, the important movement is the public one - to challenge corrupt and exploitative business practice and forms of governance - by de-legitimising elite interests.

Related:

Dispatches: Inside Britain's Israel Lobby

e-flux Conversations Why Boycott the Zabludowicz Art Trust?

Verso - The Case for Sanctions Against Israel

Tory Donor Linked to Panama Firm The Times, 17 April 2016

Morgan Quaintance Right Shift

Documentary Take The Money And Run?  Ethics, funding and art

Jodi Dean Communicative Capitalism: Circulation and the Foreclosure of Politics

Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel – PACBI Statement

Brian Eno Apollo Magazine

Mute Magazine

Jodi Dean The Anamorphic Politics of Climate Change e-flux

Artquest's System Failure - a series of recorded conversations

Previous discussion Decolonise Goldsmiths: Boycott Zabludowicz

Democracy Now! 100 Writers Call on PEN to Reject Israeli Embassy Sponsorship

Arts Strike Now! By BDZ Group

 * From Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet   Gif. Tesseract ϟ 5D. Millicent Hawk