Following our practice of cascading artist’s invitations at Flutgraben Performances Residencies, i. e. to pass on residencies from last year’s artists to their successors, earlier this year one of our resident artists invited an artist to take part in FPR. Shortly before the beginning of their residency, the artist asked us as the facilitator team of FPR to position ourselves publicly in relation to the conflict between Israel and Palestine, which had escalated since 7 October 2023. We were unable to fulfil this request to the extent demanded by the artist. The artist withdrew from their participation in our program.
We regret that.
Around these events there has been a growing atmosphere of unclarity in Germany and a governmental pressure to control what is allowed to be said. The examples of artists being cancelled and silenced are getting more and more, project spaces have been closed and fundings withdrawn.
We believe it is a fundamental democratic right to allow different views, to enable dialogue and to allow conflicting perspectives to be expressed publicly. This conflict has various dimensions all of which need to be addressed, from Germany’s particular relationship to Israel to the plurality of critical voices, including Jewish voices, of the actions of the Israeli government.
The current political pressure for just one standpoint as demonstrated in the Bundestag’s “Resolution on Anti-Semitism” (in unconditional support of Israel while banning critical statements) is destructing freedom of speech within our artistic context, and beyond. It leads to self-censoring in the cultural field and makes it impossible to share existing legitimate perspectives.
The Flutgraben Performances Team