Joint Statement Regarding the Impact of the U.S. Immigration Ban On Artistic Freedom

February 9, 2017

Copyright: National Coalition Against Censorship (NCAC), Artsfex with Mary Ann deVlieg and Julia Farrington, and Professor Catherine D’Ignazio’s students at Emerson College.

Freedom of artistic expression is fundamental to a free and open society. Uninhibited creative expression catalyzes social and political engagement, stimulates the exchange of ideas and opinions, and encourages cross-cultural understanding. It fosters empathy between individuals and communities, and challenges us to confront difficult realities with compassion.

Restricting creative freedom and the free flow of ideas strikes at the heart of the core values of an open society. By inhibiting artists’ ability to move freely in the performance, exhibition, or distribution of their work, United States President Trump’s January 27 Executive Order, blocking immigration from seven countries to the United States and refusing entry to all refugees, jettisons voices which contribute to the vibrancy, quality, and diversity of US cultural wealth and promote global understanding.

The Executive Order threatens the United States safe havens for artists who are at risk in their home countries, in many cases for daring to challenge repressive regimes. It will deprive those artists of crucial platforms for expression and thus deprive all of us of our best hopes for creating mutual understanding in a divided world. It will also damage global cultural economies, including the cultural economy of the United States.

Art has the power to transcend historical divisions and socio-cultural differences. It conveys essential, alternative perspectives on the world. The voices of cultural workers coming from every part of the world – writers, visual artists, musicians, filmmakers, and performers – are more vital than ever today, at a time when we must listen to others in the search for unity and global understanding, when we need, more than anything else, to imagine creative solutions to the crises of our time.

As cultural or human rights organizations, we urge the United States government to take into consideration all these serious concerns and to adopt any regulations of United States borders only after a process of deliberation, which takes into account the impact such regulations would have on the core values of the country, on its cultural leadership, as well as on the world as a whole.

PEN America (USA)

Aide aux Musiques Innovatrices (AMI) (France)

Alliance for Inclusion in the Arts (USA)

Arterial (Africa)

Artistic Freedom Initiative (USA)

ArtistSafety.net

ArtsEverywhere (Canada)

Association of Art Museum Curators and Association of Art Museum Curators Foundation

Association Racines (Morocco)

Bamboo Curtain Studio (Taiwan)

Cartoonists Rights Network International

Cedilla & Co. (USA)