Visiting Artists and Academics Petition
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DEPORTED: ARTISTS AND ACADEMICS BARRED FROM THE UK 1 VISITING ARTISTS AND ACADEMICS PETITION A Manifesto Club dossier to mark the PAUL HOBSON Director, Contemporary Arts Society submission of the Visiting Artists and Academics LISA APPIGNANESI President, English PEN Petition to 10 Downing Street, 17 March 2010 BARONESS JULIA NEUBERGER REVEREND JEREMY HUMMERSTONE Vicar www.manifestoclub.com/visitingartists of Torrington, Devon POLLY STAPLE Director, Chisenhale Gallery — HELEN SAINSBURY Manager, Tate Modern PABLO LAFUENTE Managing Editor, Afterall RAYMOND TALLIS, Emeritus Professor of SANDY NAIRNE Director, National Portrait Gallery Geriatric Medicine SUKHDEV SANDHU Writer & Chief Film Critic, TACITA DEAN Artist The Daily Telegraph LORD TIM CLEMENT-JONES ANNE BEAN Artist FABIO ROSSI Director, Rossi & Rossi Gallery AMY CHAM Blackburn Museum & Art Gallery STELARC Chair in Performance Art, Brunel University TERRY SMITH Artist RAIMI GBADAMOSI Artist GERARD LEMOS Arts Council England’s Cultural ANTHONY M HOWELL Artist & Author Diversity Panel HILARY GRESTY Director, Visual Arts JANET SUZMAN Actress & Director & Galleries Association RASHEED ARAEEN Artist & Founding Editor, Third Text PHELIM MCDERMOTT Artistic Director, Improbable IWONA BLAZWICK OBE Director, RAQS MEDIA COLLECTIVE Curators for Manifesta 7 Whitechapel Gallery PROFESSOR JOHN HUTNYK Centre for Cultural ALAN SILLITOE Writer Studies, Goldsmiths DAVID MEDALLA Director, London Biennale MELANIE DELANEY Director, The Termite Club ANA LYNCH Singer, Scissor Sisters SIMON MELLOR General Director, Manchester GILL LLOYD MBE & JUDITH KNIGHT MBE International Festival Directors, Artsadmin BARRY SCHWABSKY Art Critic & Poet ADALET GARMAINY Director, Artrole DR HUBERTUS JAHN Snr Lecturer, University ANTONY GORMLEY Artist of Cambridge JUDE KELLY OBE Artistic Director, South Bank Centre TOPHER CAMPBELL Artistic Director, The Red Room HELENA KENNEDY QC MELISSA HOARE Lord Deacon of Bathfordshire ZARINA BHIMJI Artist ZINEB SEDIRA Artist NICHOLAS HYTNER Director, Royal National Theatre SONIA BOYCE MBE Artist EMILY PETHICK Director, The Showroom Gallery MICHAEL BOGDANOV Theatre Director EDDIE BERG Artistic Director, BFI Southbank LUCY NEAL OBE PAULINE HADAWAY Director, Belfast Exposed MICHAEL MOORCOCK Editor, Journalist & Novelist Photography Gallery RACHEL WHITEREAD CBE Artist LOLA YOUNG Baroness Young of Hornsey OBE BLAKE MORRISON Writer LOIS KEIDAN Director, Live Art Development Agency KAMILA SHAMSIE Writer LEMN SISSAY Poet, Writer & Performer EUGENE ROGAN Director, Middle East Centre, JATINDER VERMA Artistic Director, Tara Arts Oxford University MAUREEN DUFFY writer MORIS FARHI MBE PETER JENKINSON OBE DAVID KNOPFLER Recording Artist DEBORAH BESTWICK Director, Oval House Theatre ANNE FINE OBE FRSL Writer JAMES LINGWOOD AND MICHAEL MORRIS ARTHUR BROWN God of Hellfire Directors, Artangel CHARLIE GILLETT BBC Radio Presenter & Programmer JEREMY DELLER Artist MATTHEW SLOTOVER Director, Frieze Art Fair JENNI LOMAX Director, Camden Arts Centre NICOLAS KENT Artistic Director, Tricycle Theatre … and 10,000 otherS We, the undersigned, believe that these Home Office restrictions discriminate against our overseas colleagues on the grounds of their nationality and financial resources, and will be particularly detrimental to artists from developing countries, and those with low income. Such restrictions will damage the vital contribution made by global artists and scholars to cultural, intellectual and civic life in the UK. DEPORTED: ARTISTS AND ACADEMICS BARRED FROM THE UK 3 DEPORTED: ARTISTS AND ACADEMICS BARRED FROM THE UK — A Manifesto Club dossier Manick Govinda Josie Appleton Valerie Hartwich A MANIFESTO CLUB DOSSIER: MARCH 2010 4 Manifesto Club www.manifestoclub.com Published: Manifesto Club, March 2010 Authors: Manick Govinda, Josie Appleton, Valérie Hartwich Edit: Josie Appleton Design: Tom Mower DEPORTED: ARTISTS AND ACADEMICS BARRED FROM THE UK 5 Foreword This dossier marks the submission of the Manifesto Club petition against the points-based visa system to Downing Street on 17 March 2010. Here, we publish the most striking cases submitted to us over the past year, of the artists, musicians, dancers, writers and academics who have been shut out of the UK by these suspicious and closed-minded rules. Many of these testimonies were posted on the petition or our Facebook page, or in one case emailed to us at 1am by a frantic artist-curator who had heard that his invited artist had been locked up at Heathrow and was about to be sent home. This is an account of talent and ability stopped at our borders, which has left the country all the poorer. The Chinese artist, Huang Xu, was refused a Visa to attend the opening of his exhibition at London’s October Gallery; the South African illustrator, Nikhil Singh, was unable to attend his own book launch; Cristina Winsor, a New York artist, was deported for the crime of carrying a couple of small paintings under her arm. The points-based system has hampered the classical arts, with English National Opera losing Iranian film director Abbas Kiarostami, and the Royal Festival Hall losing Russian Classical pianist Grigory Sokolov. Ballet Russe, the Swansea-based ballet company, was brought to ruin when its dancers were not allowed back in the country after their holidays in Russia. But the points- based system particularly affects emerging and more unusual collaborations: the Pakistani pipe band refused a visa to play at the World Pipe Band Championships in Glasgow; the US hop-hop artist unable to give a talk at a UK university. Many of the artists included in this dossier were treated very shabbily indeed, locked up for hours in airport interrogation rooms before being deported, often at great personal expense. Many were deported on a bureaucratic error or pedantry, or because their lack of a masters degree deemed them ‘insufficiently educated’. Many, unsurprisingly, say that they do not ever want to return. This is a dossier of shame for the UK Home Office. Yet this is only a small selection of the thousands who have had to endure the absurd stringencies of the UK Border Agency since the points-based visa system was introduced. We call not for special treatment for these individuals, but the overturning of the points-based visa system as a whole, and its replacement with a more humane system that recognises the value and richness brought by visitors to these shores. This dossier also includes a selection of the 10,000-plus people who have signed the Manifesto Club Visiting Artists petition over the past year. This list includes teachers and academics, directors and music lovers, artists and taxi drivers, art promoters and students. Together, the petition stands as a collective cacophony of outrage against these procedures, and a collective affirmation of the value of international exchange in ideas and in art. A MANIFESTO CLUB DOSSIER: MARCH 2010 6 That so many British citizens are prepared to stand up against the management and surveillance of international visitors is ultimately a sign of hope. We say to our state that the regulation of visitors – supposedly done in our name and for our safety – does not have our support. Ultimately, perhaps, we seek to replace the hostility of bureaucratic checks and biometric fingerprints with a somewhat different message: ‘welcome’. Manifesto Club Visiting Artists and Academics Campaign Josie Appleton Manick Govinda Valerie Hartwich www.manifestoclub.com/visitingartists DEPORTED: ARTISTS AND ACADEMICS BARRED FROM THE UK 7 VISUAL ARTS/FILM ABBAS KIAROSTAMI, IRAN, FILM DIRECTOR Abbas Kiarostami cancelled his trip to direct Cosi fan tutte for English National Opera, after his treatment by UK border officials. His paperwork was deemed correct, and he gave fingerprints. “A visa was duly granted. A few hours later it was withdrawn and I was asked to resubmit my application. I did so immediately and was asked for a second set of prints. When I pointed out my prints were unlikely to have changed … I was told this method had been used to catch over 5,000 criminals worldwide.” He decided to withdraw. He said: “I want to be absolutely clear that my decision was based solely on the disgraceful treatment to which I was subjected. I travel regularly to France and Italy and am no stranger to the bureaucratic dances we Iranians need to perform to obtain visas. However, the actions of the (British) embassy were of a wholly different order.” CRISTINA WINSOR, USA, ARTIST Cristina Winsor, a US citizen and talented artist from the downtown East Village New York scene arrived in London on Sunday 6 September 2009 to visit friends and take part in a free five-day art festival in the respected east London venue The Foundry, only to be detained for seven hours in a detention centre at Heathrow airport and escorted on an outbound plane back to New York by security guards. Her crime? Carrying two small paintings under her arm, which she wished to exhibit at the festival and with a bit of luck, sell for a few hundred dollars. Statement from Cristina Winsor: “The immigration officials told me that selling my work was illegal without a business visa, and took me to the detention centre for further questioning. I told them I wouldn’t sell my paintings if it was against the law, and even offered to leave them at the airport so that I could at least stay in the country and see my friends, and pick them up on my way out. They said they couldn’t trust me to have changed my mind so fast, and that they couldn’t show me favouritism by holding my paintings until my return flight four days later. I then sat in the immigration detention centre for seven hours and was escorted to an outbound NYC flight by security. They only gave me back my passport once I disembarked in JFK airport in NY. I opened my passport to see a little ‘barred entry’ symbol.” ADAM FELDMETH, USA, ARTIST David Mabb, an academic at Goldsmiths, University of London, reported the case of a young US artist Adam Feldmeth travelling for leisure to UK, who had accepted to do a day’s tutorials at Goldsmiths whilst in London.