Artist Can­dice Bre­itz Has Found a Cre­ative Way to Protest a Museum’s Link to Refugee Prison Camps

When South African artist Can­dice Breitz‘s work Love Sto­ry goes on view at the Nation­al Gallery of Vic­to­ria this week, it will have a new name: Wil­son Must Go. Bre­itz is rechris­ten­ing the sev­en-chan­nel video piece — which fea­tures actors Alec Bald­win and Julianne Moore recount­ing the tales of refugees in first per­son — in protest of the NGV’s cur­rent use of the firm Wil­son Secu­ri­ty, a com­pa­ny that over­saw the impris­on­ment of thou­sands of immi­grants and refugees to Aus­tralia on Papua New Guinea’s Manus Island and the island nation of Nau­ru. The piece — which chan­nels the pow­er of celebri­ty to bring atten­tion to the plight of refugees — has now become a work of protest against the mis­treat­ment of immi­grants at Australia’s off­shore deten­tion cen­ters. The video instal­la­tion is set to go on view Decem­ber 15 in the NGV Triennial(through April 15), a sprawl­ing exhi­bi­tion fea­tur­ing work by 100 artists and design­ers includ­ing Camille Hen­rot, Yay­oi Kusama, and Team­lab. Breitz’s work, Love Sto­ry, was com­mis­sioned by the NGV and pre­vi­ous­ly on view in the South African pavil­ion at the 2017 Venice Bien­nale. It will next appear at South Africa’s Good­man Gallery (Feb­ru­ary 1 – March 10, 2018) and at Cleveland’s FRONT Tri­en­ni­al in July. 

In this hand­out pho­to pro­vid­ed by the Aus­tralian Depart­ment of Immi­gra­tion and Cit­i­zen­ship, facil­i­ties at the Manus Island Region­al Pro­cess­ing Facil­i­ty, used for the deten­tion of asy­lum seek­ers that arrive by boat, are seen on Manus Island, Papua New Guinea in 2012. Pho­to cour­tesy of the Aus­tralian Depart­ment of Immi­gra­tion and Cit­i­zen­ship via Get­ty Images.

​“The new title will remain in effect for as long as the work is on view at the Nation­al Gallery of Vic­to­ria, or when the work is exhib­it­ed in any oth­er exhi­bi­tion con­text on Aus­tralian soil, until the NGV sev­ers its rela­tion­ship with Wil­son Secu­ri­ty,” Bre­itz wrote on Face­book. She encour­aged oth­er par­tic­i­pat­ing artists to fol­low her lead and sim­i­lar­ly rename their works ​“Wil­son Must Go.” The muse­um has said its use of Wil­son is tem­po­rary. Nei­ther the secu­ri­ty com­pa­ny nor the muse­um imme­di­ate­ly respond­ed to art­net News’s request for com­ment. In 2015, an Aus­tralian Sen­ate report found that there had been 30 alle­ga­tions of child abuse and 15 reports of sex­u­al assault or rape at the deten­tion facil­i­ties over­seen by Wil­son, accord­ing to the Syd­ney Morn­ing Her­ald. The Papua New Guinea Supreme Court ruled in April of 2016 that the Manus Island deten­tion cen­ter was illegal. 

In this hand­out pho­to pro­vid­ed by the Aus­tralian Depart­ment of Immi­gra­tion, the Nau­ru Island deten­tion camp for immi­grants to Aus­tralia was dam­aged by a 2013 riot. Pho­to cour­tesy of the Depart­ment of Immi­gra­tion via Get­ty Images.

The com­pa­ny began work at the deten­tion cen­ters as a sub­con­trac­tor for Trans­field Ser­vices, a gov­ern­ment con­trac­tor, in 2012. In 2014, a num­ber of artists protest­ed the Bien­nale of Syd­ney for being spon­sored by Transfield’s par­ent com­pa­ny, Trans­field Hold­ings. Their threats to boy­cott the exhi­bi­tion led the Bien­ni­al to drop to Trans­field as a spon­sor. In an effort to dis­tance itself from the con­tro­ver­sy, Trans­field Hold­ings rebrand­ed Trans­field Ser­vices as Broad­spec­trum in 2015, and sold the com­pa­ny to Span­ish infra­struc­ture giant Ferrovial. 

Pro­test­ers hold a ral­ly in Syd­ney to urge the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment to end the refugee cri­sis on Manus Island on Novem­ber 4, 2017. Pho­to cour­tesy of Peter Parks/​AFP/​Getty Images.

The con­tracts for Broad­spec­trum and Wil­son were set to expire near the end of Octo­ber, and both com­pa­nies opt­ed to cease their work at the facil­i­ties. The gov­ern­ment shut down the Manus Island camp at the end of Octo­ber — a chaot­ic process. Under a deal bro­kered by Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma (to his successor’s dis­plea­sure), some refugees from the cen­ters have reset­tled in the US, with more expect­ed to fol­low. But regard­less of the cur­rent sta­tus of the cen­ter, Wilson’s long-term involve­ment there remains a fact. 

Julianne Moore and Alec Bald­win in Can­dice Breitz’s Love Sto­ry, a pro-refugee video work now reti­tled WIL­SON MUST GO in protest of the Nation­al Gallery of Victoria’s use of Wil­son Secu­ri­ty, which ran Australia’s con­tro­ver­sial off­shore immi­gra­tion deten­tion cen­ters. Video still cour­tesy of the artist.

Breitz’s deci­sion to rename her work pos­es an inter­est­ing alter­na­tive to boy­cotting or pulling a work from a show in protest of a spon­sor or con­trac­tor. ​“I trust,” Bre­itz wrote, ​“that the NGV will receive this ges­ture as one of sol­i­dar­i­ty, sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Triennial’s focus on forced dis­place­ment, but more impor­tant­ly, sol­i­dar­i­ty with all refugees and asy­lum seek­ers who have been or remain sub­ject to the cru­el­ty of the Aus­tralian off­shore deten­tion régime, as enforced by agents like Wil­son Secu­ri­ty.” Read Breitz’s state­ment in full below.

» WHY I’M SAB­O­TAG­ING MY OWN WORK « +++++++ WIL­SON MUST GO ++++++++++++ I am one of many artists par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Nation­al Gallery of Victoria’s inau­gur­al NGV Tri­en­ni­al, an exhi­bi­tion that is sched­uled to open in Mel­bourne this week. ​‘Move­ment’ is one of five themes that frame the Tri­en­ni­al. Con­se­quent­ly, the exhi­bi­tion includes a num­ber of works that engage with and rep­re­sent the glob­al cri­sis of dis­place­ment. My own work, LOVE STO­RY, a video instal­la­tion that evolves out of inter­views with six indi­vid­u­als who have fled their coun­tries in response to a vari­ety of oppres­sive con­di­tions, has been enabled and acquired by the NGV for the Tri­en­ni­al, via a gen­er­ous artist com­mis­sion. It has come to my atten­tion, via the Artists’ Com­mit­tee (an infor­mal asso­ci­a­tion of Mel­bourne-based artists and arts work­ers), that secu­ri­ty ser­vices at the NGV are cur­rent­ly pro­vid­ed by a pri­vate secu­ri­ty con­trac­tor called Wil­son Secu­ri­ty. On their web­site, Wil­son claims to ​‘offer the high­est lev­el of pro­tec­tion and peace of mind for [their] cus­tomers across myr­i­ad indus­tries and com­plex busi­ness sce­nar­ios.’ Under con­tract to the Aus­tralian gov­ern­ment, how­ev­er, Wil­son secu­ri­ty has vio­lent­ly enforced the impris­on­ment of refugees and peo­ple seek­ing asy­lum in Australia’s off­shore immi­gra­tion deten­tion cen­tres. The hor­rif­ic effects of indef­i­nite manda­to­ry deten­tion are well-doc­u­ment­ed. The alle­ga­tions against Wil­son Secu­ri­ty since the com­mence­ment of their con­tracts on Manus Island and Nau­ru in 2012 are exten­sive and dis­turb­ing. While I am grate­ful for the immense sup­port I have received from the NGV, it would be moral­ly remiss, in light of the above knowl­edge, for me to remain silent in the con­text of the cur­rent con­ver­sa­tion that is tak­ing place around the Aus­tralian government’s ongo­ing and sys­tem­at­ic abuse of refugees. I have been assured by the NGV that the con­trac­tu­al rela­tion­ship between the gallery and Wil­son Secu­ri­ty is of a tem­po­rary nature. I have been told that the ten­der­ing process that will cul­mi­nate in the appoint­ment of a more per­ma­nent con­trac­tor is at an advanced stage. As such, the response that this state­ment artic­u­lates is itself poten­tial­ly of a tem­po­rary nature: With imme­di­ate effect, the work of art that was for­mer­ly known as LOVE STO­RY will car­ry the new title WIL­SON MUST GO. The new title will remain in effect for as long as the work is on view at the Nation­al Gallery of Vic­to­ria, or when the work is exhib­it­ed in any oth­er exhi­bi­tion con­text on Aus­tralian soil, until the NGV sev­ers its rela­tion­ship with Wil­son Secu­ri­ty. Until that point, the work will con­tin­ue to speak its objec­tion to being under the sur­veil­lance of a secu­ri­ty con­trac­tor that com­mits human rights abus­es in Australia’s off­shore deten­tion cen­tres. Until that point, all NGV pub­li­ca­tions of any nature, all pub­lic dis­cus­sions host­ed by the NGV, any edu­ca­tion­al con­ver­sa­tions con­duct­ed around the work at the NGV, any and all press com­mu­ni­ca­tions issued by the gallery, and all wall texts and cap­tions, shall refer to the work as WIL­SON MUST GO. The title of the work will auto­mat­i­cal­ly revert to LOVE STO­RY if and when Wil­son goes. Should they wish to, I invite oth­er Tri­en­ni­al artists who may share my dis­com­fort at hav­ing their works under the sur­veil­lance of Wil­son Secu­ri­ty, to tem­porar­i­ly rename their own works WIL­SON MUST GO. It is extreme­ly unfor­tu­nate that indi­vid­ual secu­ri­ty work­ers who are cur­rent­ly engaged at the NGV may expe­ri­ence neg­a­tive reper­cus­sions as a result of this inter­ven­tion. The NGV has assured me that fair treat­ment of their secu­ri­ty staff is of high pri­or­i­ty. I have every rea­son to believe that the NGV will pro­vide secure work­ing con­di­tions for their secu­ri­ty staff, and wish to make clear that this inter­ven­tion in no way wish­es to tar­get spe­cif­ic indi­vid­u­als who cur­rent­ly pro­vide secu­ri­ty ser­vices on NGV premis­es. The moral fail­ure char­ac­ter­is­ing the Aus­tralian government’s refugee pol­i­cy is all the more deplorable in ​‘a nation that has been forged through sto­ries of mobil­i­ty.’ As the NGV Tri­en­ni­al cat­a­logue states, ​‘The chal­lenge of hos­pi­tal­i­ty is not an abstract philo­soph­i­cal prob­lem or a minor polit­i­cal issue.’ I have expe­ri­enced my inter­locu­tors at the NGV to be deeply attuned to the hor­rif­ic con­di­tions and chal­lenges fac­ing refugees and asy­lum seek­ers world­wide. I trust that the NGV will receive this ges­ture as one of sol­i­dar­i­ty, sol­i­dar­i­ty with the Triennial’s focus on forced dis­place­ment, but more impor­tant­ly, sol­i­dar­i­ty with all refugees and asy­lum seek­ers who have been or remain sub­ject to the cru­el­ty of the Aus­tralian off­shore deten­tion régime, as enforced by agents like Wil­son Secu­ri­ty. Can­dice Bre­itz Mel­bourne, 12 Decem­ber 2017

Pho­to­graph of Can­dice Bre­itz by Hel­ga Traxler. Arti­cle link: Click