Public apology
At WUK performing arts, the past year has been devoted to resolving a conflict with artist Bita Bell. It arose from how we handled the artist’s request to take a stand on the war in Gaza in the context of our programme-wide poster and folder campaign for the 2024/25 season.
An in-depth reflection on this situation over the past months has revealed a lack of awareness in terms of accountability and power relations on behalf of our institution.
WUK performing arts and WUK would like to sincerely apologise to Bita Bell.
We regret that we made crucial mistakes in the communication and management of this conflict. The underlying conditions and objectives of our poster and folder campaign were not communicated with due transparency. We failed to clearly define fundamental aspects of the collaboration in advance and to sufficiently acknowledge our own position of power. We realised too late in the process that external support was needed to facilitate a moderated and respectful dialogue. Ultimately, the lacking clarity prevented the anticipated processes and outcomes from being implemented. In the end, we decided against taking a pro-Palestinian stance in our poster and folder campaign for our season programme, which resulted in the silencing of Bita Bell’s activist position.
We take Bita Bell’s feedback and responses very seriously and see them as an impetus for improving our institutional practice. In the framework of a coaching programme with D—Arts Projektbüro für Diversität and Sara Hassan, we are currently critically questioning our internal structures and working towards enhancing our sensitivity to power relations.
In recognition of this valuable exchange, we have made Bita Bell an offer of compensation. It is intended as an expression of our institutional learning process and our efforts to create fair conditions for artistic collaboration.
In the spirit of a learning institution, the cultural departments of WUK are continuing their dialogue with D—Arts and Sara Hassan in order to raise awareness of institutional abuse of power and to identify and address structural inequalities at an early stage.
Andreas Fleck (artistic director, WUK performing arts) &
Stefanie Steinwendtner (managing director, WUK Kunst und Kultur)