Liberation Front.
The Art Not Genocide Alliance Congress took place over three days, from 22–24 November 2024 online and in person at Laboratorio Occupato Morion and Cyprus Pavilion in Venice. This closed-door gathering of trusted cultural workers brought together artists, organisers, and activists primarily from Europe, alongside participants from North America and Palestine.
Building a Liberation Front.
Across three days, the Congress held six sessions forming the core of the program. The first addressed the principles of PACBI (Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel), strategy and impact, grounding participants in the frameworks of cultural boycott.
The second explored the politics and practicalities of refusal, examining what it means for cultural workers to say no to complicit institutions. The third tackled toxic philanthropy versus autonomous and unconditional funding, and asked how movements can sustain themselves outside compromised funding structures.
Central Question
How can cultural workers build autonomous, solidarity-based infrastructure independent of institutional funding streams complicit in genocide, apartheid, and occupation?
The fourth turned to law as a tool for fighting censorship and repression. The fifth examined Lumbung, a collective resource-sharing organisational model, with a European focus. The sixth and final conversation returned to cultural boycott as both strategy and practice.
Complementing the conversations were two workshops and two evening sessions. One workshop focused on mapping autonomous and unconditional funding sources, while the other centered on tactics and alliance-building with Italian student encampments, bridging cultural worker organising with student movements.
The evenings included a Learning Palestine session on how people could get involved, alongside a dedicated session on the Palestinian performing arts archive. Each of the three days concluded with a general assembly, serving as a collective space to reflect, check in, and synthesise the work of the day.
Sessions were led by representatives from ANGA, PACBI, Strike Germany, Institute of Radical Imagination (IRI), Decolonize This Place, The Owneh Initiative, Taring Padi, Communist Museum, Institute of Network Cultures, Collecteurs, Artists Union England, European Legal Support Center (ELSC), Venice Assemblea Permanente at Università Iuav di Venezia, Ca’Foscari occupation, Collettivo LISC, CRAAD Collettivo Cocomero, GPI, Movimento Studenti Palestinesi in Italia, Writers Against the War on Gaza (WAWOG), No Arms in the Arts, and Books Against Genocide, with food organised by Tocia.
The knowledge generated across six conversation sessions was collectively “harvested” for future organising, assemblies, and public-facing work, with a follow-up online session planned for early December.