BOYCOTT LACOSTE

French clothing firm Lacoste censors, expels Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour from prestigious contest

Submitted by Ali Abunimah on Tue, 12/20/2011 - 14:22

Update: 21 December 2011 at 19:45 GMT

The Musée de L’Elysée in Lausanne has suspended the 2011 Lacoste Prize.

Original post

Image from Larissa Sansour’s Nation Estate project censored by the Lacoste Elysée Prize

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Larissa Sansour

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The high-end French clothing chain Lacoste has demanded the removal of work by Palestinian artist Larissa Sansour from the shortlist for the €25,000 Lacoste Elysee Prize that is awarded by the Swiss Musee de l’Elysee with sponsorship from the firm.

A Palestinian who is “too pro-Palestinian”

Sansour was among eight finalists shortlisted for the 2011 prize. According to a press release issued by Sansour, “Lacoste stated their refusal to support Sansour’s work, labelling it ‘too pro-Palestinian.’”

This latest instance of apparent censorship of Palestinian artists by a cultural institution comes just months after the Museum of Children’s Art in Oakland, California censored an exhibit of art by children in Gaza just before its planned opening under pressure from anti-Palestinian Zionist groups.

Sansour refuses to sign statement that she withdrew voluntarily

Sansour, who is based in London, is a native of Bethlehem in the occupied West Bank. The press release explains:

As a nominee, Sansour was awarded a bursary of €4,000 and given carte blanche to produce a portfolio of images for the final judging. In November 2011, three photos for Sansour’s Nation Estate project were accepted, and she was congratulated by the prize administrators on her work and professionalism. Sansour’s name was included on all the literature relating to the prize and on the website as an official nominee. Her name has since been removed, just as her project has been withdrawn from an upcoming issue of contemporary art magazine ArtReview introducing the nominated artists.

In an attempt to mask the reasons for her dismissal, Sansour was asked to approve a statement saying that she withdrew from her nomination ‘in order to pursue other opportunities’. Sansour has refused.

Søren Lind, Sansour’s assistant, told The Electronic Intifada today that the Lacoste company had yet to give any public response on the matter. A Google-cached image of the official Elysée Prize website captured by The Electronic Intifada proves that Sansour’s name was on the shortlist until at least 12 December, and then removed on the current version.

Imagining a Palestinian state as science fiction

Sansour’s multimedia project Nation Estate was “conceived in the wake of the Palestinian bid for UN membership. Nation Estate depicts a science fiction-style Palestinian state in the form of a single skyscraper housing the entire Palestinian population. Inside this new Nation Estate, the residents have recreated their lost cities on separate floors: Jerusalem on 3, Ramallah on 4, Sansour’s own hometown of Bethlehem on 5, etc.”

Sansour was born in Jerusalem and her multimedia work has been exhibited all over the world. The photo above, from the exhibit, is published courtesy of Sansour. More can be seen at her website.

A Space Exodus

A Space Exodus

A clip from Sansour’s 2009 short film A Space Exodus.

Full text of press release

20th December 2011

LACOSTE: NO ROOM FOR PALESTINIAN ARTIST

French fashion brand demands the removal of Bethlehem artist Larissa Sansour from major photographic prize.

The prestigious €25,000 Lacoste Elysée Prize is awarded by the Swiss Musée de l’Elysée with sponsorship from Lacoste, the clothing brand.

Larissa Sansour was among the eight artists shortlisted for the 2011 prize. In December 2011, Lacoste demanded that her nomination be revoked. Lacoste stated their refusal to support Sansour’s work, labelling it ‘too pro-Palestinian’. A special jury will convene in January 2012 to select the winner.

As a nominee, Sansour was awarded a bursary of €4,000 and given carte blanche to produce a portfolio of images for the final judging. In November 2011, three photos for Sansour’s Nation Estate project were accepted, and she was congratulated by the prize administrators on her work and professionalism. Sansour’s name was included on all the literature relating to the prize and on the website as an official nominee. Her name has since been removed, just as her project has been withdrawn from an upcoming issue of contemporary art magazine ArtReview introducing the nominated artists.

In an attempt to mask the reasons for her dismissal, Sansour was asked to approve a statement saying that she withdrew from her nomination ‘in order to pursue other opportunities’. Sansour has refused.

Sansour says: “I am very sad and shocked by this development. This year Palestine was officially admitted to UNESCO, yet we are still being silenced. As a politically involved artist I am no stranger to opposition, but never before have I been censored by the very same people who nominated me in the first place. Lacoste’s prejudice and censorship puts a major dent in the idea of corporate involvement in the arts. It is deeply worrying.”

Sansour’s shortlisted work, Nation Estate, is conceived in the wake of the Palestinian bid for UN membership. Nation Estate depicts a science fiction-style Palestinian state in the form of a single skyscraper housing the entire Palestinian population. Inside this new Nation Estate, the residents have recreated their lost cities on separate floors: Jerusalem on 3, Ramallah on 4, Sansour’s own hometown of Bethlehem on 5, etc.

Regretting Lacoste’s decision to censor Sansour’s work, Musée de l’Elysée has offered to exhibit the Nation Estate project outside of the confines of the Lacoste sponsorship. Musée de l’Elysée is based in Lausanne, Switzerland. The Lacoste Elysée Prize 2011 is the award’s second edition. Please find attached three photos from Sansour’s Nation Estate project.

BACKGROUND INFORMATION

Sansour Bio

Born in Jerusalem, Larissa Sansour studied Fine Art in Copenhagen, London and New York. Her work is interdisciplinary, immersed in the current political dialogue and utilises video art, photography, experimental documentary, the book form and the internet.

Sansour’s work features in galleries, museums, film festivals and art publications worldwide. Recent solo shows include exhibitions at Kulturhuset in Stockholm, Depo in Istanbul, Galerie La BANK in Paris and Jack the Pelican in New York.

She has participated in the biennials in Istanbul, Busan and Liverpool. Her work has appeared at venues such as Tate Modern, London; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Third Guangzhou Triennial, China; Alternative Space LOOP, Seoul; Institut du Monde Arabe, Paris; Iniva, London; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin; Al Hoash, Jerusalem; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid; MOCA, Hiroshima; PhotoCairo4, Egypt.

Sansour’s short film A Space Exodus was nominated in the Best Short category at the Dubai International Film Festival.

She lives and works in London.

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21 décembre 2011

CENSEUR – Lacoste évince une artiste palestinienne de son « Lacoste Elysée Prize »

Lacoste, la célèbre marque au crocodile, aurait-t-elle été prise en flagrant délit de censure ? C'est en tout cas ce que clament de nombreux blogs et sites internet, qui dénoncent l'éviction de l'artiste Larissa Sansour, jugée "trop pro-palestinienne", d'un prix suisse sponsorisé par l'entreprise française.

Pour la deuxième année consécutive, la marque de prêt-à-porter finance en effet le "Lacoste Elysée prize", un prix doté de 25 000 euros décerné à un "artiste prometteur", sous le patronage du musée suisse de l'Elysée. Pour cette édition 2011, le jury avait retenu le thème de "la joie de vivre". Les consignes étaient ainsi formulées : "Chacun est libre d’aborder le thème comme il l’entend, de manière directe ou détournée, avec authenticité ou dérision, sur la base d’un travail existant ou d’une création."

En novembre, huit artistes ont été retenus. Parmi eux, Larissa Sansour, née à Jérusalem, avait été sélectionnée sur la base du projet Nation Estate, un portefeuille de photographies montrant la naissance d'un état palestinien, sous la forme d'un immense gratte-ciel ceint d'un mur de béton. Pour mener à bien ce projet, elle avait reçu, à l'instar des autres sélectionnés, une bourse individuelle de 4 000 euros. "Very excited to be nominated for the Lacoste Elysée Prize 2011", écrivait ainsi le 9 novembre Larissa Sansour sur son site personnel.

Mais début décembre, le nom de l'artiste est retiré de la liste et son projet n’apparaît plus dans l’édition du magazine d’art Art Review, censé présenter le travail des candidats. C'est en fait la société Lacoste qui aurait fait pression auprès du musée de Lausanne, refusant de soutenir un travail qu'elle juge "trop pro-palestinien". Pour éviter une mauvaise publicité, les organisateurs ont demandé à Larissa Sansour de signer un document affirmant qu'elle avait choisi personnellement d'abandonner la compétition "afin de se consacrer à d’autres opportunités". Elle a refusé, se disant "profondément choquée".

En réaction, les appels au boycott de la marque au crocodile se multiplient sur Internet. Le blog "Lunettes rouges" appelle pour sa part les internautes à écrire aux autres artistes sélectionnés pour le "Lacoste Elysée prize" afin de faire pression sur le jury et obtenir l'annulation du prix, qui doit se clôturer en janvier. L'entreprise française n'a pas réagi pour l'instant.

Do not speak, do not resist – Israel rules out non-violence ~ by Jonathan Cook / La loi sur le boycott intensifie la répression en Israël- Neve Gordon

Do not speak, do not resist – Israel rules out non-violence ~ by Jonathan Cook

July 18, 2011 by occupiedpalestine 0 Comments

Jonathan Cook | Jul 18, 2011 | The National

It was an Arab legislator who made the most telling comment to the Israeli parliament last week as it passed the boycott law, which outlaws calls to boycott Israel or its settlements in the occupied territories. Ahmed Tibi asked: “What is a peace activist or Palestinian allowed to do to oppose the occupation? Is there anything you agree to?”

The boycott law is the latest in a series of ever-more draconian laws being introduced by the far-right. The legislation’s goal is to intimidate those Israelis who have yet to bow down before the majority-rule mob.

Look out in coming days for a bill to block the work of Israeli organisations trying to protect Palestinian rights; and another draft law investing a parliamentary committee, headed by the far-right, with the power to appoint supreme court judges. The court is the only, and already enfeebled, bulwark against the right’s ascendancy.

The boycott law, backed by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, marks a watershed in this legislative assault in two respects.

First, it knocks out the keystone of any democratic system: the right to free speech. The new law makes it illegal for Israelis and Palestinians to advocate a non-violent political programme – boycott – to counter the ever-growing power of the half a million Jewish settlers living on stolen Palestinian land.

As the Israeli commentator Gideon Levy observed, the floodgates are now open: “Tomorrow it will be forbidden to call for an end to the occupation [or] brotherhood between Jews and Arabs.”

Equally of concern is that the law creates a new type of civil, rather than criminal, offence. The state will not be initiating prosecutions. Instead, the job of enforcing the boycott law is being outsourced to the settlers and their lawyers. Anyone backing a boycott can be sued for compensation by the settlers themselves, who – again uniquely – need not prove they suffered actual harm.

Under this law, opponents of the occupation will not even be dignified with jail sentences and the chance to become prisoners of conscience. Rather, they will be quietly bankrupted in private actions, their assets seized either to cover legal costs or as punitive damages.

Human rights lawyers point out that there is no law like this anywhere in the democratic world. But more than half of Israelis back it, with only 31 per cent opposed.

The delusional, self-pitying worldview that spawned the boycott law was neatly illustrated this month in a short video “ad” that is supported, and possibly financed, by Israel’s hasbara, or propaganda, ministry. Fittingly, it is set in a psychiatrist’s office.

A young woman, clearly traumatised, deciphers the images concealed in the famous Rorschach test. As she is shown the ink-splodges, her panic and anger grow. Gradually, we come to realise, she represents vulnerable modern Israel, abandoned by friends and still in profound shock at the attack on her navy’s commandos by the “terrorist” passengers aboard last year’s aid flotilla to Gaza.

Immune to reality – that the ships were trying to break Israel’s punitive siege of Gaza, that the commandos illegally boarded the ships in international waters, and that they shot dead nine activists execution-style – Miss Israel tearfully recounts that the world is “forever trying to torment and harm [us] for no reason”. Finally she storms out, saying: “What do you want – for [Israel] to disappear off the map?”

The video – released under the banner “Stop the provocation against Israel” – was part of a campaign to discredit the recent follow-up flotilla from Greece. The aid mission was abandoned after Greek authorities, under Israeli pressure, refused to let them sail.

Israel’s siege mentality asserted itself again days later as international activists staged another show of solidarity – this one nicknamed the “flytilla”. Hundreds tried to fly to Israel on the same day, declaring their intention to travel to the West Bank.

Israel threatened airlines with retaliation if they carried the activists and it massed hundreds of soldiers at Ben Gurion Airport to greet arrivals. About 150 peaceful protesters who reached Israel were arrested moments after landing.

Echoing the hysterical sentiments of the woman in the video, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, denounced the various flotillas as “denying Israel’s right to exist” and a threat to its security.

Although Mr Netanyahu’s comments sound delusional, there may be a method to the madness of measures like the boycott law and the massive overreaction to the flotillas.

These initiatives, as Mr Tibi points out, leave no room for non-violent opposition to the occupation. Arundhati Roy, the award-winning Indian writer, has noted that non-violence is essentially “a piece of theatre. [It] needs an audience. What can you do when you have no audience?”

Mr Netanyahu and the Israeli right appear to understand this point. They are carefully dismantling every platform on which dissident Israelis, Palestinians and solidarity activists hope to stage their protests. They are making it impossible to organise joint peaceful and non-violent resistance, whether in the form of boycotts or solidarity visits. The only way being left open is violence.

Is this what the Israeli right wants, believing it offers a justification for entrenching the occupation? By generating the very terror he claims to be trying to defeat, does Mr Netanyahu hope he can safeguard the legitimacy of the Jewish state and destroy hopes for a Palestinian state?

Jonathan Cook is The National’s correspondent in Nazareth, Israel. He won this year’s Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism

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Je n ai pas trouve la traduction française de l' article ci-dessus de Jonathan Cook, en attendant voila un article de Neve Gordon, un académique israélien, qui pousse un cri d'alarme, comme beaucoup d'autres israéliens, sur la nouvelle loi contre le boycott.

www.info-palestine.net

La loi sur le boycott intensifie la répression en Israël

samedi 16 juillet 2011 - Neve Gordon
Al Jazeera

Les changements politiques se produisent lentement. On ne s’endort pas dans une démocratie pour se réveiller sous un régime fasciste. Les citoyens égyptiens et tunisiens connaissent aussi la situation contraire : la dictature ne se change pas en démocratie du jour au lendemain.

Tout changement politique d’une telle ampleur est le résultat d’un travail ardu qu’il faut toujours intensifier ; il n’y a donc pas vraiment d’événement historique ayant servi à lui seul de déclencheur.

Il y a, cependant, des événements significatifs qui servent d’étapes historiques importantes .

On se rappellera le suicide de Mohamed Bouazizi, qui s’est aspergé d’essence et s’est immolé par le feu quand la police a confisqué sa marchandise parce qu’il n’avait pas les permis nécessaires ; ce fut l’étincelle qui a mis le feu à la révolution tunisienne, voire aux soulèvements sociaux régionaux actuels, appelés le réveil arabe. De même, les rassemblements massifs sur la place Tahrir seront probablement considérés comme la goutte d’eau qui a fait déborder le vase et qui ont enclenché le lent processus de démocratisation en Égypte...

En Israël, le moment historique pourra très bien être la loi sur le boycott que la Knesset a approuvée par un vote de 47 voix contre 38.

Ironiquement, la loi elle-même sera sans doute sans importance. Elle stipule que toute personne qui lance, favorise ou publie des informations pouvant servir de base à l’instauration du boycott d’Israël ou des colonies juives en Cisjordanie occupée ou à Jérusalem-Est, commet une infraction. La personne jugée coupable d’une telle infraction pourra être obligée de dédommager les parties économiquement lésées par le boycott, à concurrence de 30.000 shekels israéliens ($8.700) sans que les plaignants aient à fournir la preuve des dommages qu’ils ont subis.

L’objectif de la loi est de défendre le projet de colonisation israélien et d’autres politiques violant le droit international en matière de droits de l’homme, contre la mobilisation non violente visant à mettre un terme à ces politiques.

Le conseiller juridique de la Knesset, Eyal Yinon, a dit que la loi « corrompt l’essentiel de la liberté d’expression politique en Israël » et qu’il lui serait difficile de la défendre devant la Haute Cour de Justice dans la mesure où elle contrevient à la loi fondamentale d’Israël sur « la dignité humaine et la liberté ». Étant donné la déclaration de Yinon et le fait que les organismes israéliens de défense des droits humains ont déjà déposé une requête à la Cour Suprême arguant du fait que la loi est antidémocratique, il y a de fortes chances pour que la loi sur le boycott aura une vie extrêmement courte.

Pourtant, cette loi devrait être considérée comme un tournant. Non pas en raison de ses effets, mais de ce qu’elle représente.

Après des heures de discussion à la Knesset israélienne, le choix était clair. D’une part, il y avait le projet de colonies et les politiques de violation des droits humains, et de l’autre, il y avait la liberté d’expression, pilier de base de la démocratie. Le fait que la majorité des législateurs israéliens aient décidé de soutenir l’adoption de la loi, démontre simplement qu’ils sont disposés à détruire la démocratie israélienne pour s’accrocher à la Cisjordanie et à Jérusalem-Est.

L’attaque contre la démocratie a gagné en intensité. La loi sur le boycott était simplement le moment de vérité, précédé par la loi sur la Nakba et celle du Comité sur l’allégeance ; elles seront vraisemblablement suivies par l’adoption d’une série de lois visant à détruire les organisation israéliennes de défense des droits humains. Ces lois seront votées dans les mois à venir, et, vu la composition de la Knesset, il est extrêmement probable qu’elles seront toutes adoptées.

Les législateurs israéliens se rendent pourtant compte que pour écraser toute résistance interne, il ne suffira pas de détruire les organisations de défense des droits humains. La cible finale est la Haute Cour de Justice, seul établissement qui a encore le pouvoir et l’autorité pour défendre les pratiques démocratiques.

Leur stratégie, consiste apparemment à attendre que la Cour annule les nouvelles lois et d’exploiter ensuite la déception du public devant les décisions de la Cour pour en limiter l’autorité ; ils adopteront une législation empêchant les juges d’annuler des lois inconstitutionnelles. Une fois que l’autorité de la Cour Suprême aura été sévèrement entravée, la route sera ouverte pour que la droite de la Knesset ait le champ libre. Le processus menant à la mort de la démocratie israélienne sera peut-être lent, mais le pays a pris une direction parfaitement claire.


Neve Gordon est l’auteur de Israel’s Occupation dont le site web est ici.

Cet article peut être consulté ici :

http://english.aljazeera.net/indept...

BOYCOTT New cartoons series by Carlos Latuff / Une nouvelle serie de caricatures par Carlos Latuff

BDS campaigners all around the world, you are free to use these artworks in your materials.
http://twitter.com/CarlosLatuff

Cette serie pour soutenir la campagne de Boycott (BDS) est libre d'utilisation.