Interview: Art Workers for Palestine Scotland on the Case for a Cultural Boycott

Once at the forefront of the cultural boycott of apartheid South Africa, Scotland has a rich history of collective action. Art Workers for Palestine Scotland (AW4PS) is a movement of artists and workers in the cultural sector keeping this radical history alive with their campaign for solidarity with Palestine within the Scottish arts.

This year, the group are leading an audience and artist boycott of the Edinburgh International Festival after two years of discussions with the organisation over their corporate sponsor Baillie Gifford. Founding member of AW4PS, Hussein Mitha, explains why the group are calling for their first ever public boycott.

‘What does it mean for art, especially contemporary art, not to engage with the most urgent contemporary issue of our time?’ asks Hussein Mitha, a founding member of Art Workers for Palestine Scotland. Hussein started the organisation with two others in 2021 in response to a call-out from Palestinians asking international workers to organise collectively for their cause.

‘Artists are obviously workers as well,’ Hussein reflects, ‘even though there’s a kind of tendency in the arts not to see ourselves as workers. But we realised that it’s really important that we do see ourselves as workers so that we can collectivise towards causes for liberation and especially Palestinian liberation.’

In the wake of 7th October 2023, AW4PS grew into a movement of hundreds of people working in Scottish culture. ‘Lots of people across the sector did have sympathy with the Palestinian cause, but there was a taboo in terms of being visible with that,’ Hussein explains.

‘And I think we still see that across large swathes of the sector, even though our campaign for the cultural boycott of Israel has resulted in over 250 organisations, mainly grassroots groups across Scotland, pledging to boycott Israeli cultural institutions.’

As well as urging organisations to sign up to the Palestinian campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, or PAСВІ, the group have also drawn attention to the Scottish cultural sector’s financial complicity in the ongoing genocide.

Many of Scotland’s largest arts institutions receive funding from Baillie Gifford, an Edinburgh-headquartered investment firm with investments in arms contractors who supply the Israeli military and in companies operating in the occupied West Bank.

AW4PS have put pressure on these cultural institutions to urge Baillie Gifford to divest from Israel’s war or sever their ties with the corporation. By summer 2024, several organisations including Collective Gallery, Stills Gallery, Imaginate, and Fruitmarket had announced they would drop Baillie Gifford as a sponsor, successes Hussein attributes to the hundreds of hours of organising AW4PS put into their campaign.

But many of the largest institutions including the National Galleries of Scotland still receive backing from the firm. The Fringe Society, Hussein explains, also gets a small amount of funding. But this year, the campaign has chosen to highlight the largest recipient of Baillie Gifford money in the Scottish arts: the Edinburgh International Festival.

EIF have maintained their partnership with Baillie Gifford despite talks with AW4PS over the past two years and more than 700 artists, art workers and audience members having signed an open letter urging them to drop the sponsorship. AW4PS have also criticised them over ‘gagging clauses’ in artists’ contracts which instruct them not to criticise or damage the reputation of the festival or its sponsors, whereas EIF say that they are standard practice.

While organisations such as EIF argue that boycotts and protests threaten the survival of the arts, AW4PS have chosen the festival as their target because of its size and prestige. ‘We’ve called for the boycott because, for us, EIF epitomises something of the class struggle in the arts and how that maps onto Palestine organising,’ explains Hussein.

‘EIF gets the largest amount of money from Creative Scotland of any organisation across Scottish culture. […] They receive an exorbitant amount of funding at the same time as grassroots organisations that are in solidarity with Palestine are really, really struggling.’

‘This is why we haven’t called for a boycott of any other Scottish organisation other than EIF,’ they continue. ‘We’re aware that we’re treading quite a delicate position whereby we don’t want to stop people’s access to culture or get blamed for shutting down cultural venues.

Because it’s really not our fault that these cultural venues are closing. And that’s why we’ve been quite conscientious in choosing our boycott target as EIF, because they can take the hit and they should drop Baillie Gifford.’

The group have reason to be hopeful, Hussein argues, given Scotland’s history of anti-apartheid struggle. ‘We’ve already been successful in terms of over 250 organisations having signed up to PACBI, which is the largest per capita of any cultural sector in the world.’

They refer to the fact that Glasgow was the first city to offer Nelson Mandela Freedom of the City during his incarceration and was one of the first places he visited after his release. ‘We really wanted to tap into those radical currents within Scottish culture as well, and the radical histories that mean so much to us today.’

For Hussein, solidarity with Palestine and the urgent fight to save grassroots arts venues are not opposed but intertwined. ‘I think that kind of conjuncture makes it more important to fight for a cultural sector that does stand for something and stands for liberation. And I think we’re as much fighting for the soul of contemporary art as in relation to Palestine.’

AW4PS will soon be sharing a boycott pledge for audience members to sign, strengthening their case for EIF to break ties with Baillie Gifford. For festival-goers keen to support Palestinian artists, Hussein and their colleagues suggested a range of shows during the Fringe, as well as exhibitions at Embassy Gallery and the Palestine Museum, and Falastin Film Festival at the end of August.

Children of the Genocide: Expressions of Hope and Loss, Embassy Gallery, 17th-19th July

Metal Memories: Sounds of the Palestinian Streets (Edinburgh Art Festival), Palestine Museum, 14th-30th August

Falastin Film Festival, Edinburgh (multiple venues), 27th-30th August

The Bridge, Upstairs at Assembly Roxy, 6th-16th August

The Horse of Jenin, Beyond at Pleasance Courtyard, 18th-30th August