On 13 March, at the opening night party of the Sydney Biennale, the New York-based DJ Zubeyda Muzeyyen, known as DJ Haram, is alleged to have made several comments that have been condemned by Australian officials as antisemitic.
According to reports in The Guardian, during her set the artist claimed that a ‘Zio-Australian-Epstein empire’ was responsible for silencing dissenters, referenced ‘martyrs’ and chanted the phrase ‘from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.’
The following Monday, Chris Minns, the premier of New South Wales (NSW), condemned the language as ‘distressing’ and ‘horrid rhetoric’ but rejected the idea to pull any state funding from the Biennale.
The British multinational PwC, one of the Biennale’s major corporate sponsors, withdrew its support.
On Tuesday, The Sydney Morning Herald reported that the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies filed a police complaint requesting that the event be investigated urgently.
A statement issued on the Biennale of Sydney’s website says that ‘DJ Haram made strongly worded proclamations and a soundscape which some people found confronting and distressing… This performance deviated significantly from the agreed brief, without prior notice, and was contrary to the artist agreement in place.’
