The artist and activist Tania Bruguera’s continuous studying of Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism at Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin was halted on Saturday (10 February) after pro-Palestine protestors disrupted the occasion. Bruguera’s 100-hour studying of Arendt’s evaluation of the circumstances that led to the Nazi and Soviet totalitarian regimes, started on 7 February and was resulting from finish on 11 February. She invited artists, activists, members of the general public and extra to participate within the studying, which befell across the clock.
An announcement posted on Instagram by Hamburger Bahnhof says: “On 10 February, Hamburger Bahnhof was attacked twice by members of a political activist group who disrupted [Bruguera’s] efficiency [entitled Where Your Ideas Become Civic Actions—100 Hours Reading The Origins of Totalitarianism].”
The assertion provides: “The primary incident occurred between 2pm and 3pm, when the group who had registered to be a part of the studying, took benefit of the efficiency to make use of #HateSpeech. The second incident occurred between 8pm and 9pm, when members of the identical group returned and used violent hate speech in direction of one of many readers and one of many museum administrators.
“In these circumstances, the open dialogue that’s the intent of this efficiency is not doable. This morning, the artist determined to shut the efficiency in standing up towards hate speech and any type of #violence.”
The journalist Mirna Funk stated in an Instagram story that “Hamburger Bahnhof was fully unable for 12 minutes to eliminate a bunch who overtly screamed the prohibited phrase, ‘from the river to the ocean, Palestine will likely be free’… Bruguera tried to inform them how a lot she has achieved for Palestinians.”
In Berlin, the usage of the controversial slogan “from the river to the ocean, Palestine will likely be free” has been criminalised as a result of it’s seen as a type of incitement to hate.
An account generally known as Thawra, in the meantime, posted a movie. Within the movie the protestors will be seen shouting “no extra normalisation of Zionism” in entrance of individuals attending the studying. Bruguera is seen remonstrating with the demonstrators, and is requested, “why do you give a platform to Zionists?”
The encounter turns into more and more heated because the demonstrators ask: “The place are the Palestinian voices?”, including that “over 30,000 individuals are being murdered”. We contacted the group asking them to answer the accusation that they used “hate speech”.
Sam Bardaouil and Until Fellrath, the administrators of Hamburger Bahnof, added in a press release: “We respect and absolutely stand by the choice of the artist and refuse categorically any type of hate speech and violence. It’s to our deep remorse that we’ve got to proceed this fashion in an effort to defend the security of the contributors of the efficiency. We invite folks to replicate upon the results of not respecting the #TheFreedomofArt.”
In final week’s episode of The Artwork Newspaper’s The Week in Artwork podcast, Bruguera mentioned her Hamburger Bahnhof present earlier than it was shut down.
