The Glasgow Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA) closed yesterday, 24 June, in response to a takeover of the space by the activist group Art Workers for Palestine Scotland.
The CCA board announced in a statement via social media that the Centre will remain closed today ‘to allow time for reflection and internal communication’.
The police intervened in the early afternoon on Tuesday following a report of ‘a disturbance involving a large group’. A 63-year-old woman was arrested. The protestors collectively left the building around 3pm.
On Sunday, Art Workers for Palestine Scotland announced they would stage an events programme centring ‘Palestinian liberation, Palestinian art and culture, anticolonial thought and the complicity of our arts organisations’ in the CCA’s public courtyard from 24–28 June. The events aimed to turn the CCA courtyard into a ‘liberated zone’ and included study and reading groups, film screenings and creative workshops.
The programme was organised in response to the institution’s board refusing to endorse the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI), and upon discovering that the CCA was renting their space to the streaming platform MUBI for a private event in November. MUBI has recently accepted a $100 million investment from Sequoia Capital, which also invests in Israeli military technology.
This morning, Art Workers for Palestine Scotland released a statement denouncing the CCA’s response, stating that ‘the police were lying in wait’ and that ‘CCA’s internal security assaulted and tackled an art worker to the floor for entering the public space of the courtyard’. The group also demands the immediate resignation of Roddy Hunter, member of the board, and Jean Cameron, chair of the board, who they claim colluded with the police to preemptively coordinate a response.
