We are the artists, producers, front of house staff, audiences & beyond who keep this industry alive. We’re here, unified in ‘Australia’, a colonised country built on the genocide and dispossession of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. We stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people in their struggle for liberation from colonialism, apartheid & ethnic cleansing and call for an immediate ceasefire and an end to occupation. We are calling for collective public actions of solidarity and we are making demands of our government and our arts institutions.

Side by side these First Nations and settler migrants of all generations and ancestries and identities demand:

1. An end to the Israeli occupation of Palestine.
2. For the Australian government and Foreign Minister Penny Wong to call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.
3. For our arts institutions to join the call for an immediate and permanent ceasefire.
4. For the safety and rights of artists to be honoured wherever they may work.

This is urgent. The genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza has severely escalated since the end of the “truce” – we cannot become complacent or fatigued. Our resistance will not be overwritten, censored or ignored. Acting publicly in support of Palestinian liberation is necessary. From the successful artist boycott of Sydney Festival in 2022, to the Blak cast of The Visitors through Moogahlin & Sydney Theatre Company (STC) leading by example with a post show statement– this is what global solidarity looks like. This didn’t start with 3 actors wearing the keffiyeh at the curtain call of STC’s The Seagull or the over 100 journalists who co-signed a letter asking for ethical journalistic practices to be upheld in the reporting of the siege on Gaza.The resistance is over 75 years long and momentum is only growing.

These artists are not alone. Our power is in our collective action; and so on Wednesday 13th December 2023:

• Wear your keffiyeh, lapel pin or Palestinian solidarity shirt to wherever you work
• Show up in solidarity at your local gallery, theatre, venue, art after hours
• Take a collective photo at work, share a post
• Add your signature
• We will not cross the line to fill vacated roles
• We will call out your covert censorship

Shame on STC for commodifying the Black & Brown bodies and stories on their stages for social and financial capital, while demanding they stay silent. Shame on contemporary arts institutions that welcome Palestinian artists into their spaces as long as they are silent. Shame on institutions that make moral compromises in preference for coddling their donors and subscribers. We refuse to be ushered into silent complicity.

Whether graceful, justifiably angry, digital or live— it is increasingly clear that to stand for the right for Palestinians to live liberated and safe, is not only punishable but must be apologised for. The show mustn’t go on as usual when people are being massacred.

From The River To The Sea. Always Was Always Will Be.

 Click here to find a complete list of signatories and add your name.