They launched a petition calling on show organisers to refuse backing from the arms firm BAE Systems.
Source: The Great Exhibition of the North.
The exhibition is to run from June 22 through September 9. Many artists were happy to participate in the event until sponsors were announced. BAE Systems, the UK’s biggest arms corporation, was named among the major sponsors. The firm is accused of “profiteering from the deaths of innocent children”. The company sold weapons worth £6bn to Saudi Arabia during the ongoing war in Yemen.
Emily Hesse, a ceramist living in northen England, said she didn’t know about the corporation’s sponsorship of the event when she accepted the invitation last year: “There is no way I would have been involved had I known about the sponsorship. I imagine many artists are struggling with this.” The arts group Commoners Choir and musician Nadine Shah have also pulled out.
A group of artists, including Emily Hesse, Jill Gibbon and curator Sara Makari-Aghdam, launched a petition urging Sarah Stewart, the chief executive of NewcastleGateshead Initiative, to refuse from BAE Systems’s sponsorship. Sara Makari-Aghdam says: “Cultural producers have a social responsibility to uphold; this sponsorship has ruined what ought to be a positive celebration of our region.”
More than 600 people singed the open letter, condemning arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which conducted airstrikes in Yemen, bombing schools, markets, hospitals and health centres. It says that “the conflict has killed or injured more than 5,000 children, while survivors face malnutrition and disease with the collapse of infrastructure.”
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