Open letter from eight thousand art professionals

Eight thousand art and culture professionals around the world sign a letter demanding cultural organizations and institutions to break their silence in the face of human rights violations committed by Israel against Palestine.

More than eight thousand artists, curators, filmmakers and professionals in the field of culture and the arts signed a letter that was circulated through Artforum which demands: an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the entry of humanitarian aid and "the "end to the complicity of government bodies in serious violations of human rights and war crimes."

The letter, which we reproduce below in Spanish, emphasizes the political responsibility of artistic and cultural institutions in terms of not remaining silent in the face of the circumstances of colonial violence and genocide as ethical coherence between their programs and the circumstances.

The artistic community is diverse and crosses borders, nationalities, faith and belief systems. We, as artists, writers, curators, filmmakers, editors and workers who create the core around which institutions and organizations revolve, need to be assured that they are not only safe spaces, but also human ones.

We support Palestinian liberation and call for an end to the killing and harm of all civilians, an immediate ceasefire, the passage of humanitarian aid to Gaza and an end to the complicity of government bodies in serious rights violations human rights and war crimes.

We demand that the institutional silence surrounding the current humanitarian crisis faced by 2.3 million Palestinians in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip be immediately broken. In the words of the UN Resident Humanitarian Coordinator for the Occupied Palestinian Territories: "This is about the loss of our humanity if the international community allows this to continue. What we are seeing now is simply inhumane."

Silence in these urgent moments of crisis and escalation of genocide is not a politically neutral position. In recent years, significant steps have been taken to institutionally address social justice and inequality. Its artistic programs benefit from these policies. We now call for continued and expanded recognition of the crimes against humanity faced by the Palestinian people.

The continued bombing of Gaza and the killing and forcible displacement of its residents has been condemned by Amnesty International, the United Nations, the World Health Organization and Action Aid. These, among other world bodies, have indicated that the collective punishment of Gaza civilians - which includes the murder of aid workers, journalists and doctors, as well as the destruction of all vital infrastructure and resources, cutting off the supply of water, food, electricity and medicines—is equivalent to a war crime.

There is ample evidence that we are witnessing the unfolding of a genocide in which the already precarious life of the Palestinian people is deemed unworthy of help, let alone human rights and justice. With impunity, Israel has already carried out three of the five defining acts outlined by the United Nations Genocide Convention. As Raz Segal, Israeli historian and genocide scholar, writes: "Israel has also escalated its 16-year siege of Gaza—the longest in modern history, in clear violation of international humanitarian law—into a 'full siege.'" . This directive to carry out the systemic destruction of Palestinians and Palestinian society in Gaza comes directly from Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who has described his targets in degrading terms, such as "human animals."

We, the undersigned, reject violence against all civilians, regardless of their identity, and call for an end to the root of violence: oppression and occupation. We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people. We ask arts organizations to show solidarity with cultural workers and call on our governments to demand an immediate ceasefire and the opening of Gaza border crossings to allow humanitarian aid to enter unhindered.

We believe that arts organizations and institutions whose mission is to protect freedom of expression, foster education, community and creativity, also defend freedom of life and the basic right to existence. We ask you to reject inhumanity, which has no place in life or art, and to publicly demand a ceasefire from our governments.

They sign:

Nan Goldin

Laura Poitras

Eyal Weizman

Saidiya Hartman