The BDZ boycott is an active, non-symbolic refusal to reproduce the Zabludowicz Art Trust’s project or further its reactionary aims. Practically, we ask art workers to refuse to visit, work with, sell artwork to, or otherwise support, the Zabludowicz Art Trust.
As a cultural boycott, it’s not just about refusing funding or direct in-kind support from the organisation. Support means breaking off your involvement with Zabludowicz Art Trust in all its forms, and for institutions (academic or artworld) this involves ending partnerships with Zabludowicz Trust, de facto and (preferably) formally.
It doesn’t matter if you have visited, worked with or sold to them in the past. Like any strike or protest, the point is where we are going, not where we have been. If you have sold work to Zabludowicz Collection in the past you are encouraged to withdraw the ‘conceptual content’ of your work from the Collection. Writers and curators should refuse to work for the organisation or review its shows.
We ask signatories of the boycott to research all events and exhibitions in advance to make sure the Zabludowicz Trust are not involved via sponsorship or in-kind support. Supporters should refuse opportunities involving Zabludowicz Trust in any form. In such cases, supporters can also bring the boycott to the organisers’ attention and ask them to break off their partnership. Supporters are encouraged to contact us if unsure in specific cases. We are happy to work together to support signatories on this and to raise awareness about specific shows or projects so that collectively we can increase the pressure on the Zabludowicz Trust. The more we are aware of its activities and the more we work together, the better we can collectively challenge their attempt to annex artistic activity to their ends.
SECONDARY INSTITUTIONS
Like the wider BDS movement, BDZ are strategically committed to a targeted boycott. In our case the strategic target is the Zabludowicz Collection, which is the central institution of the Zabludowicz Arts Trust. We are, however, morally and politically committed to a wider boycott, and we hope that artists and others who support our campaign will take that moral and political commitment seriously, and act in the spirit of it. We ask signatories working with institutions on projects that are receiving any kind of support from Zabludowicz Trust to look at the case for boycott and to join the artists, educators, and art lovers standing up to the artwashing of apartheid.
We don’t ask signatories to boycott other institutions working with Zabludowicz Art Trust per se – art schools, galleries, etc. BDZ is a boycott of Zabludowicz not its partners, current or past. However, we do ask artists and others working in institutions that have current partnerships with the Zabludowicz Art Trust to call on them to end these, to raise awareness among all involved, and to put pressure on them to change. Signatories have done this at art schools and galleries, for example when showing work or speaking at the ICA, Whitechapel, etc. We encourage signatories to do the same and to help put pressure on institutions to end their partnerships with the Zabludowicz Art Trust whenever they work with them.
We are in solidarity with the Boycott Divest Sanctions movement (BDS), the Palestinian Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), and Artists For Palestine who advocate a cultural boycott of Israeli companies and institutions in receipt of funds from the Israeli state, and non-cooperation with attempts to silence and suppress critique of Israeli policy in the UK and abroad. The boycott of Zabludowicz Arts Trust is formulated in line with BDS and PACBI guidelines, and does not include activist, educational and peace-building initiatives in Israel, Palestine or abroad not supported by Israeli state agencies.
BDZ / Boycott Zabludowicz 