Artist Jasleen Kaur’s acceptance speech was delivered at the Turner Prize award ceremony at Tate Britain and broadcast live on BBC News Channel, on 3rd December 2024.
‘To the artists, the poets, the parents,
the students who show me the slow and meticulous
work of organising and world building
the folk who orient their lives towards
freedom in practice
not theory
who advocate for life, not death.
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As the atrocities mount up, the silence of UK cultural institutions grows more deafening, the double standards ever more glaring.
In March 2022, a fortnight after Russia invaded Ukraine, Tate cut ties with billionaire donors and Tate International Council members, Viktor Vekselberg and Petr Aven. ‘We will not work with or maintain relationships with anyone associated with the Russian government,’ said Tate.
On Palestine, Tate has made no such statement. On the contrary, it has kept up its relationships with donors and organisations associated with the Israeli government. It has remained silent on Israel’s total destruction of Gaza.
Now, in the lead up to this year’s Turner Prize awards ceremony, more than 60 artists closely associated with Tate (including three out of four of this year’s Turner Prize nominees, two of its judges, and many former prize winners and nominees) have signed an open letter. Supported by a thousand further signatories in the arts, it calls on Tate’s leadership to cut ties with organisations that are deeply complicit with the Israeli state.
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Artists for Palestine UK 