Tag Archives: censorship

Censorship: Blacktown/Singapore

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The following was written for the exhibition "Check Point" at Mori Gallery, Sydney, which opened on 26 January 2005, (Australia Day aka "Invasion Day"). The event and publication was organised by Zanny Begg. (see my other entry where I have interviewed her about the censorship of her work in Blacktown).

……………..

In 1998, during the 5th Artists’ Regional Exchange (ARX5) in Singapore, Hong Kong Artist Zunzi Wong had his inkjet drawing torn off the walls of the Singapore Art Museum, and stuffed into the museum dumpster. The drawing was a satirical portrait of the then Singapore PM Goh Chok Tong, portrayed as a puppet of “Elder Statesman” Lee Kuan Yew. The cartoon wasn’t particularly incisive or threatening, and simply echoed what Zunzi had been hearing about the leader while on residency in Singapore. But political satire isn’t allowed in that country (or at least wasn’t in 1998), and the museum director, Joanna Lee, suppressed the artwork in order to avoid remonstrance from her superiors in the government ministry. *

Well, that’s my version of the story. At the time, I remember Joanna Lee saying something along the lines of: “We always reserve the right to curate the exhibition, and curating means we can select those pieces which go on show, and this was simply one piece we didn’t happen to choose.” Also, she said the piece breached the contract between artist and museum, which called for “cultural sensitivity” (whatever that means). The museum offered to compensate Zunzi for the cost of making the inkjet prints.

The slippery behaviour of the museum, which (in our comfy liberal view of the world) should be defending the rights of the artist, freedom of speech, etc, has always remained in my memory, attached inextricably to Zunzi’s cartoon. Without that dramatic act of censorship Zunzi’s piece would have just been another bland artwork on the museum walls. But it is impossible to separate the piece from the series of events which followed, including its publication in Art Asia Pacific magazine, and discussion of the issue in various international symposia. The artwork became a kind of provocation for a fascinating social performance, which revealed the limits of acceptable behaviour in Singapore at that time. This was its strength.

Similarly, the inclusion of Zanny Begg’s piece in the [Out of Gallery] exhibition forced the Blacktown Council to “play its hand”. The Council confiscated the spray-stencilled panels, stating that Begg had breached council regulations by placing “illegal signs,” and demanding $400 from the artist to get them back. The “illegal signs” idea is fascinating, and Begg should, in a way, take it as a compliment. So often artists strive to have their projects taken seriously “in the world” – to have their work operate within society as “real politics” – and not as some sort of aestheticised version. Art often gets special treatment – which enables it to exist in the public sphere, but which simultaneously weakens its impact. “Ordinary folks,” when faced with something unusual or challenging, (which isn’t attempting to sell them some product) can relax when they find out “it’s just an artwork”. But Begg’s piece offended somebody within the council (or at least, someone within the council saw the potential that the work might offend somebody else) enough to require censorship.

The role of the curator in this Blacktown schermozzle has been something of a mystery to Begg, and myself, as we have repeatedly tried to get to the bottom of the matter. Adnan Begic, who commissioned the work, went deadly silent as soon as the shit hit the fan, and it was never clear “whose side he was on” – whether he supported the censorship, or opposed it but was silenced by his superiors. What I can say, is that there is certainly a bad feeling left by his inaction – again this idea that the curator should be sticking up for the artist through thick and thin. Perhaps, we thought, he’s not saying anything because he doesn’t want to lose his job – and yet he lost his job anyway. So the worst of both worlds for Begic – no heroics on behalf of the artist, and no job.

Worst of all, the Postwest catalogue, which came out after the event, with documentation of the 38 projects for [Out of Gallery], denied that the censorship had occurred at all.

I do feel anger on behalf of the artist, but I don’t feel sorry for her, because the artwork, as a result of being removed, is having a life far beyond what it might have had otherwise. And, like the Zunzi Wong affair in Singapore, Begg’s work has revealed something essential, somewhat scary, but, by now, not all that surprising – that by suppressing an act of speech, you simply give it more power.

……………….

* In fact, satire in Singapore is allowed, but only under certain conditions: “ although … Minister for Information and the Arts George Yeo mentioned in Parliament in 1995 that political caricatures would be allowed as long as they were done in good taste and without any malicious intentions, the issue of who defines this "good taste'' is raised in the 1998 Zunzi Wong incident at the Singapore Art Museum.” – Lim Cheng Tju, <http://www.singapore-window.org/sw00/000730st.htm>

……………….

update: November 2004, Future of Imagination performance art festival was held in Singapore. Go to the website www.futureofimagination.org and read a review of it in RealTime #65, Feb March 2005, by Alwin Reamillo: www.realtimearts.net

[ps – it could be worth making a connection between these affairs, and the Corridart Affair in Montreal, 1976.]

blacktown art gallery censorship schermozzle

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Blacktown Art Gallery recently organised an exhibition entitled [out of gallery] which was billed as a series of "guerrilla art events". However, last week the work of one artist, Zanny Begg, was cancelled and censored by the very council which commissioned it. Here is an account of the schermozzle from Zanny herself:
…………………

What project was the artwork part of?
Was the commissioning body aware of the nature of the artwork before it was installed?

The artwork was part of the [Out of Gallery] project which is jointly organized by the Blacktown Arts Centre and The University of Western Sydney.
This was a curated exhibition: artists were asked to submit a proposal of the work they wanted to make and they were chosen on the basis of their proposals. The commissioning body was, therefore, aware for at least two months prior to its installation of the work that I intended to make.
My proposal read as follows:

"If accepted into this exhibition I would like to construct a site-specific installation and public intervention which expands upon an earlier work of mine called “Checkpoint”. In this work I created a life-size stencil of a US soldier which I placed at various “checkpoints” around Newtown. I created a series of 10 checkpoints for weapons of mass destruction outside churches, schools, houses, bus shelters – to highlight the contradictions in the political rhetoric surrounding the war. I wanted to show how absurd this rhetoric can be – a school accused of being a hiding place for weapons of mass destruction – but also how pertinent – schools in Iraq were destroyed for this very accusation.
I want to expand and develop the Checkpoint series for the Blacktown context by creating 10 checkpoints in locations around the central business area. Some of these will be sprayed onto paper and glued up (as the series in Newtown) and I have chosen a range of hoardings and disused walls for this part of the project. Some I want to spray onto wood and cut out and attach onto fences and poles.
The aim is to place the checkpoints in surprising places to highlight how the conflict in Iraq returns unexpectedly and confronts us as we shop/commute/work."

What happened?

The day began rather uneventfully – the biggest problem I felt that I was going to encounter was the weather with clouds and showers forecast for the next three days. The installation team – Kate Carr, Joy Lai and myself – crammed into a hire ute and headed out to Blacktown expecting that we would be dodging rainstorms all day. The first part of the installation was fantastic. The weather held and in about an hour we had five checkpoints set up along First St and Prince St. Crowds of school kids had been giving us the peace sign and yelling support out of a bus windows and a number of surprised and interested locals had stopped and stared as five life-sized US soldiers appeared in their neighborhood.

We then decided to head over to the Blacktown Arts Centre and set up one checkpoint in the car-park as I had promised the curator. We had set up one checkpoint outside Kmart and were outside the gallery on Flushcombe St when I was approached by a Community Law Enforcement Officer who wanted to know what we were doing. I explained that we were part of the [Out of Gallery] project and were installing a community artwork. He went inside the gallery and to check it out and came back and told us that my artwork was an illegal sign and “in the climate of terrorism” it was “inappropriate to show such political messages”. Confused I called the curator and he told me that the General Manager had called him and that I had been pulled from the show. I was asked to remove all the remaining artworks.

What happens to the artwork now? Do you face some kind of fine?

When I went back to Blacktown the next day four of the artworks had been removed by the council and the Blacktown Arts Centre took the remaining one back to the store room. The council then sent me an email which read:

Ms Begg
Council has impounded the above sign. Enquiries made by Council indicate that you may be owner of the sign.
The sign can be claimed within 28 day of the date of the email.
An impounding fee of 410.30 is payable prior to the sign being returned.
should the sign not be claimed within that time or the impounding fee not be
paid council will proceed to dispose of the sign in accordance with the provisions of the impounding act.

I rang the council and explained that I felt unable to pay a fine to the council for a work which the council (via the art gallery) had commissioned me to make. After a short conversation a representative of the council called me back and said the fee had been waived and the works would be returned to Peter Charuk at The University of Western Sydney.

How do you feel about this whole schermozzle?

I felt very deflated and disappointed when I was pulled from the show.
The curator, Adnan Begic, had organized an interesting exhibition with great artists and I had been very excited to be included within the show. The byline for the [Out of Gallery] project was “guerilla art interventions” in Western Sydney and I had been very upfront about the work I intended to create for such an exhibition. I was disappointed, therefore, when the heat came on and there was some opposition to this work, that I was dropped from the show.

I was also disappointed that in the discussion surrounding the work that an attempt was made to recast the work as a political stunt and not an artwork.

The Mayor of Blacktown, Leo Kelly, issued a statement to the media which alleged that I was a member of a communist organization as if this alone would discredit the work. I find it disappointing that socially engaged art is so maligned. There has been an entire discussion about the “death of the avant guard” impulse in contemporary art. But this incident highlights to me that it is still possible for artists to confront and challenge aspects of society through their work.

But I have been grateful also to those who have offered their support – Stephen Mori, Con Gouriotis, the CFMEU, the local peace groups, the NSW Civil Liberty Group, the Greens, Susan Nori and individual artists who have contacted me and many others.

During all the fuss I remember looking down at a pile of CDS on the floor of a friend’s lounge room and seeing a Public Enemy CD. The song titles “Mind terrorist” “louder than a bomb” and “911 is a joke” caught my eye. Artists have long been interested in power/war/terrorism as subject matter and in the “wake of 9/11” we cannot render these topics “off limits”. We need to be careful that the “war on terrorism” is not used as a silencer for artists dictating what is OK and what is not OK to talk about. We need to be aware that anti-terrorism does not become the new McCarthyism making illegal/unspeakable views and opinions which challenge the status quo.

Is it true that other works which were planned as part of the [out of gallery] programme were cancelled following the censorship of your work?

Yes, as far as i know all the works in Blacktown that were uncomplete were cancelled or moved to another suburb. I think it would be good for other artists in the show to contact Adnan Begic (the curator), he has not responded to any of my emails and it would good to hear his response. Also at this stage the ONLY comment about why i was pulled from the show was by a council ranger, Adnan and the council never actually gave a reason why…
………………………………………………………….

update: the art life blog has much discussion on this particular censorship case, although not all of it is intelligible nor intelligent (but some is!)… I can't work out how to click directly to the article so you have to go to the art life , then proceed to November 29, 2004, and view the comments…

update: as at December 6, 2004, Adnan has not replied to my invitation to respond to Zanny's statements…

update: "Battle over street art" by Lee Dixon published in the Glebe Inner Western Weekly newspaper Thursday 9th December 2004, p 8… Two quotes from the article:

"Blacktown Mayor Leo Kelly said the Out of Gallery exhibition had been suspended until the council investigated why it was not informed of the project. 'If they had gone through the correct procedures and told us what was going to happen, we could have worked with it […] This sort of thing in the name of art is not going to go on in our city'…"
"A council spokeswoman said it would be innapropriate for Mr Begic to comment while council was examining the issue."

update:…email from Zanny:
Call for artists/activists:
make a placard…

On November 23rd 2004 I was asked to remove my artwork from the [out of gallery] project in Blacktown because it was critical of the war in Iraq (see http://bilateral.blog-city.com/ for more info). This is an open call for artists or activists to show their opposition to the war on terrorism and reject any attempts to censor those of us who speak out about political issues.
I am inviting you to be part of an exhibition at Mori Gallery which opens on January 26th. I am asking artists or activists concerned about these issues to donate an artwork which will be available for sale during the exhibition.
The only restriction for the work is that it is mounted on A3 cardboard – like a placard at a rally. Any works sold during the exhibition will raise money to produce a catalogue of the show which will have photos of the placards and essays by artists and activists.
Don’t be silenced by a climate fuelled by war and fear.
The works need to be delivered to Mori Gallery by January 10. Please
email zannybegg2@hotmail.com or morigallery@bigpond.com or call 0421420420 if you would like to participate.

update: "Postwest" publication arrives, contains dodgy data… (Dec 27th 2004)
This week in the mail I received a copy of the "Postwest" publication – basically a catalogue of the [Out of Gallery] projects. There is no mention of the censorship of Zanny Begg's artwork. On page 58, under a photo of her piece installed previously in (presumably) Newtown, there is a statement about the piece, obviously written by the artist herself, followed by this statement:

"Installation of Checkpoint was never realised. The picture above was created by artist who provisionally positioned one of the "checkpoint" plates in her neigborhood [sic] for documentation purposes only."

That this text was not written by the artist is fairly obvious – consider her remarks about the whole censorship affair in the interview above, and it would seem like a radical back-down for her to distill the whole thing to the bland statement that the "installation was never realised". According to Begg, the installation was partially realised before being siezed by council goons. So, strictly speaking, yes, if you wanted to be picky, you could say that the installation, in its entire, intended form, was never realised, but that's being mealy mouthed, given all the shit that went down.
This is another blatant case of re-writing history, all the more duplicitous since the statement is presented as if it were written by Begg herself – tacked on to the end of her artist's statement, rather than being clearly indicated as a statement by the folks putting together the catalogue.
The thing that makes this dodgy addition so obvious to anyone who was involved with the [Out of Gallery] project is the language used in the tacked-on statement – note the lack of definite articles ("Installation" instead of "The installation", "created by artist" instead of "created by the artist" etc) – it seems clear to me that this was written by curator Adnan Begic, whose correspondence is peppered with such linguistic quirks. (see for instance the email update below…)

update: Adnan Begic no longer working for Blacktown Arts Centre. (Dec 21 2004)
I received this email from Adnan, the curator of the project, and I imagine he sent it to all those involved in the [Out of Gallery] programme. No mention of why he is "concluding" his "last contract" – in fact, as far as I knew, he was planning to run the entire "Western Front" exhibition programme in Blacktown mid-2005. Weird eh. So, what I want to know is – did he get the sack over the Zanny censorship schermozzle? Why did he go totally mute and not answer any emails or phone calls over this issue? (I have also since emailed and phoned the new contact details in the email below, without any response!) What does he think about this whole issue? Why did he not come out in support of the artist's freedom of speech? etc

From: "Adnan Begic" <Adnan.Begic@blacktown.nsw.gov.au>
Date: Tue, 21 Dec 2004 11:56:02 +1100
Subject: Adnan Begic – WF The end of campaign
Dear friends,
After two and a half years with Blacktown Arts Centre I am concluding my
last contract position as BAC Curator. It has been a good a challenging but
rewarding period for me.
Almost a year ago I have initiated Western Front project. Over the last
twelve months Western Front Campaign has fused a dynamic partnership of
twelve regional and metropolitan art institutions and galleries and has
enabled more then 70 artists to participate in various contemporary art
programs, exhibitions, forums and art initiatives throughout Western Sydney.
Considering these achievements and professional accomplishments I will take
this opportunity to give a credit not only to BAC staff who have worked with
me on a yearlong campaign with great dedication and enthusiasm, but also to
all partners and artists who have made this campaign possible.
Western Front Exhibition 2005 is perceived by the regional artists as a
promising professional opportunity. Sharing their perception, I hope this
vision will be realised some time in the future.
My last day at Blacktown Arts Centre will be Friday 24 December 2004. After
this date please do not hesitate to contact me on 0415 518310 or through
contempo_rare (curatorial agency) contemporare@aol.com.
It has been a pleasure working with you all. I am looking forward to
cooperate with you in the future.
I wish you all Merry Christmas and very productive and prosperous New Year.
Kindest regards.
Adnan Begic

Performance Space Flier Schermozzle

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[the following was first published in The Lives of the Artists (sometime in early 2003) edited by Liz Pulie, Sydney. You can order a copy of the magazine by emailing frontroom_gallery@yahoo.com.au ]

Dear Liz

just wanted to let your readers know about a “schermozzle” that happened with the Performance Space late last year. You might have seen the A3 posters which advertise upcoming events at the space. The design is by Suzanne Boccalatte, and during 2002, the front of the poster always featured two groovy looking people, in their coolest clothes, posing in a grungy inner-city location … its an Aussie re-take on the “Fruits” concept – the Japanese fashion photography book. (The “Fruits” exhibition is actually in Sydney at the Powerhouse Museum right now).

Anyway, in October, Fiona Winning at The Performance Space gave Mickie Quick a ring. Apparently, the two “models” they had lined up to do the shoot fell through at the last minute, and so they were asking me and Mick to pose. We fell about laughing, ‘cos we felt about as far away from that fashion stuff as possible. We agreed to do it anyhow, fascinated and perplexed as to why they had actually asked us … apparently they liked Mickie Quick’s “Refugee Island” street sign alteration which had popped up during the BorderPanic conference, so they were keen to have that in the photo too.

We showed up for the shoot with the Refugee Island sign, and two t-shirts from an ongoing project of mine entitled “Event for Touristic Sites” – t-shirts emblazoned with national stereotypes, in this case “All Australians are Arse-Lickers” and “All Iraqis are Guilty”. We dressed up as daggy as we could, tourist shorts with heaps of cargo pockets, long socks, backpacks, green-n-gold umbrella. Frankly, we were hoping to use the Performance Space poster as a way to place art and politics in the same sphere, and (of course) to promote our own projects via the path of parasitical publicity. (And ok, we admit it, to intervene weirdly in the Performance Space’s “too-cool for school” fashion photo series.)

The photo shoot took place in Redfern: in some side streets out the back of the Performance Space; a funny little concrete apartment block courtyard; and on the traffic island near Space 3 at the corner of Regent and Cleveland Streets. This last location meant that the photo had the racist t-shirts and the Refugee Island sign in the foreground, juxtaposed with the Redfern’s TNT “twin towers” in the background. Suzanne, and Mikala from the Performance Space anticipated that these images might be a bit controversial, so they took a few extra shots in which Mick and I wore our backpacks back-to-front, and with the umbrella pointed to the camera – so that the text on the t-shirts could not be seen … a safety net in case the more hard-hitting images got rejected…

A week after posing for those photos, the “Bali Bombing” happened, and the Performance Space had to call an emergency meeting of its Board of Directors to decide if they could go ahead with using the images from our photo shoot for their publicity poster. You guessed it, they decided that they could only use the watered-down shots with the text on the t-shirts covered up.

Mick and I protested (although without much hope of making them change their mind). First we said that the references to Australia and Iraq on the t-shirts were quite un-related to the specific events in Bali (the Board’s fear supposedly being that their publicity campaign would be read by poster viewers as a direct comment on the Bali situation.)

Then we thought that to go ahead with the image might, in fact, be a courageous (and timely) tactic that the Performance Space could take, by deliberately juxtaposing national stereotypes, tourism, terrorism and refugees. Fiona Winning, the Performance Space’s director, was very supportive of our position. While disagreeing with the Board’s decision herself, she wrote:

“It was the weekend events in Bali which provoked a different position (if only we’d got it to the printers last week!). We talked it through and it’s clear to me, that the weekend events and the image are not related (ie. terrorism and the intensification of anti Muslim fervor) but as they pointed out we don’t have the opportunity to talk through with the viewers of 10,000 posters that are essentially a publicity tool for our program.”

and

“Also there was a feeling that the composition was not careful enough…. (which is Suzanne’s deliberate aesthetic) The twin TNT towers in the back kind of bagging the idea that we are vulnerable to terrorism […] Interesting how much semiotic scrutiny this image came under. Which should not surprise me in some ways and I admit to a level of naivety about not having expected that.”

(One wonders whether the board went as far as humming the words to the old AC/DC song “T-N-T… it’s DYNAMITE!!” as they were debating the semiotics of the shots…)

We respectfully withdrew our consent for them to use the watered down photos, a move Fiona had been expecting anyway. So we left it at that, and the Performance Space organised to re-shoot the poster with new models: two groovy looking kids on a bright yellow motor scooter.

*****

[I contacted the PVI (performance, video, installation) Collective in Perth, having heard that their “Terrorist Training School” project planned for October 2002 had been similarly canned due to the Bali Bombing. Actually, it was only postponed, but the story is similar, and I thought it was fascinating that these two events happened simultaneously on opposite sides of the country… Below is an email reply to my enquiries, from PVI’s Kelli McLusky …]

*****

hey luca

yeah know of your t-shirt project! [wonderful pieces] – we were part of the tis exhibition in perth too, so got to check out some of them there, although missed the public happenings with them.

but, sure, of course happy to talk about the situation and have attached a presser & pics of the work to give you an idea [theres also a write up in this month’s realtime mag, if you wanted more info], but basically the situation goes like this……deep breath…..

the artrage festival commissioned a piece from pvi for the 2002 festival planned for sept 2002. the piece was originally called terrorist training school [yep, nice and subtle] and involved a long period of research into the history of terrorism and its relationship with the media – the company is a core group of six so we get to cover a lot of diverse ground when we get stuck in to a new work. for example, two performers infiltrated the ranks of the local army reserve to gather info on the mindset of a soldier, another joined a terrorism and the media class, we recorded most sight seeing tours around the city – i guess what i’m getting at is that we’re keen for the work to be well grounded before we start to devise. anyway, we wanted the work to be a bus tour around the city, visiting local hotspots and for interventionalist acts to be happening outside at these spaces during the tour. we organised a 22-seater bus, we kitted it out with on-board media [tv, sound, mic and pvi ‘tour guide’] and we started to develop a piece that seemed v focused on generating a growing sense of fear and unease within a familiar surrounding – we mixed factual info on sites such as the belltower with complete fiction, always comparing with american counter-parts, so the belltower became perth equivalent of the statue of liberty, known as perths penis and taking the contemporary design of a cockroach mounting a syringe…you get the idea – ended up a v abstract piece in the end…anyway i’m waffling..our original publicity showed four member of pvi on a local bus with ex-american presidents masks, we used a caption from a seminal book called ‘terrorism’ written in the 70’s which was:

“terrorists will always have to be innovative…they are in some respects the super-entertainers of our time”

initially we received good responses from the publicity.

one week prior to opening the show the bali bombing occurred. artrage started to receive an increasing number of calls stating that the work was in ‘bad taste’ and should be removed from the program – we provided artrage with info on the work stating that it was v much anti-war, but using the structural device of satire in the work. the viewers and listeners association began lobbying the arts minister to have the work banned. one of artrage’s sponsors [the west australian paper] requested that their logo be removed from anything associated with the work [after they had two days prior to bali proudly published the tts ex-presidents image in the arts section of the paper, but actually refused to print the name of the show alongside it, as far as i’m aware]. things got worse with the phone calls as artrage staff members were now in tears from relatives of bali victims phoning up and abusing them for supporting the work [we fielded a few ourselves and also received some prank calls], mostly people were offended by the publicity and the quote about ‘super-entertainment’

artrage called us in for a meeting to see what we wanted to do about it all and they then received a phone call from the arts minister ‘requesting’ that we ‘strongly consider’ postponing or removing the work from the program out of respect for those who had lost loved ones. i have to add at this point that artrage were totally with us and willing to stand behind any decision we made, but we were acutely aware that we were making their life really unpleasant and felt v guilty about that. also anything we seemed to say in retaliation was coming across as defensive, so it seemed to us that we would do more harm to the work by putting it on at this point. we got advice but basically had 45 mins to make a decision before the minister released a statement to the press about it. we were advised to contribute to this statement as it could help to ease the situation, we were also advised at this point that if we wanted to still show the work then the minister could be put in a situation where she have to raise it in parliament in response to pressure from lobby groups – we were worried the work may get banned at this point, which seemed ridiculous as nobody had seen the bloody thing yet! [we were later informed that you cannot ban a work without it having at least one public showing]. anyway our decision after two hours in the artrage office and advice from board members and friends was to postpone and re-mount at a later date.

which we did.

the final work wasn’t at all different in form or content from the original, the only differences being we abbreviated the title to tts, were able to bring the sound artist over to work on-site on the soundscapes and hired a bouncer to ride with us on the bus in order to ensure the safety of bus passengers.

it was a huge learning curve for us, we have had problems b4 with previous work – we did a car sticker campaign once on how to steal the three most popular cars in australia and did a weekend hit on all these cars placing stickers with step-by-step guides on how to carry it out, [what tools to use, preferred clothing etc…] and had a visit from police, fingerprints on file etc.. but in terms of being prepared on how to respond when the shit hits the fan and also the negative impact of publicity and the fact that no-one [i’m talking press] seemed to want to hear our side of the story at all, was a real eye opener. we now want to take tts to every australian city and are in the process of applying for funding to do exactly that – so fingers crossed eh!

sorry its been a long one, hope its not a rant, but that was the upshot of events from our perspective. The deal with the perf space sounds a great shame. We know fiona does a bloody fantastic job and that must’ve been a really difficult call. been chatting to steve [from pvi] about this and you have to wonder if your publicity had gone ahead a week earlier [as fiona mentioned] if you guys would’ve experienced a similar situation to us, our feeling is yes, we think you probably would. it was equally as provocative, if not more so with the direct reference to iraq. my gut feeling now, looking at the image that did come out on the perf space program is that I would like to have seen that original image and make my own mind up about it, not to have board members do that for me. this is an easy stance to take though, we have had people saying to us that we still should have put tts on at the time and in postponing it, it made us seem to be buckling under external pressure, but ultimately for us it was about trying to reclaim some control over the situation and the work – to stop, evaluate, strategise and come back prepared for it as best we could.

take care and look forward to hearing back from you soon 🙂

cheers!
k

[see also www.pvicollective.com and http://www.realtimearts.net/rt53/khan.html]