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Title: Blood Money for Art
Author: Anarchist Affinity
Date: March 17, 2014
Language: en
Topics: Australia, art
Source: Retrieved on January 18, 2021 from https://web.archive.org/web/20210118075105/http://www.collectiveaction.org.au/2014/03/17/blood-money-for-art-transfield-and-the-sydney-biennale/
Notes: By Kieran. Published in The Platform Issue 1.

Anarchist Affinity

Blood Money for Art

The Guardian has broken the news that the Biennale of Sydney (BOS) has

severed ties with detention centre operator Transfield Services.

Transfield Holdings chairman Luca Belgiorno-Nettis has resigned from his

role as chair of the BOS. Belgiorno-Nettis has acknowledged the success

of the artists led boycott of the Biennale in forcing him out.

The following article on the links between Transfield and the Sydney art

world was written for issue 1 of The Platform. It is interesting to note

that whilst Transfield and the BOS have now formally severed ties,

Transfield remains a principle sponsor of the Sydney Chamber Orchestra

and Luca Belgiorno-Nettis remains its chair.

Transfield Services has hit pay dirt. Indefinite detention is big

business and the contracts are flowing in. Transfield has already made a

whopping $215 million in just twelve months, building the fences,

erecting the tents, and employing the guards that keep hundreds of

vulnerable refugees detained in the tropical heat of Nauru’s former

phosphate mine. Meanwhile, Transfield’s Nauran employees are paid a

pitiful $4 an hour.

And the contracts keep coming. For the first time one company will be

responsible for providing the guards who do the beatings, and the social

workers who mop up afterwards. The Salvation Army has lost its contract

to run welfare services on Nauru, and Transfield is set to replace them.

This ‘proud’ Sydney company is now positioned to run every aspect of an

immigration detention service – everything from the substandard

accommodation to the substandard food and the incompetent unmotivated

“welfare” staff can all be yours, direct from Transfield Services!

But it’s all for a good cause, the torture of refugees funds art and

culture to enrich the lives of Sydney’s richest! Transfield Services is

enmeshed in the Sydney arts scene almost as heavily as it’s enmeshed in

destroying the lives of people fleeing persecution.

Since its establishment in 1973 the Biennale of Sydney has become the

most prestigious visual arts event on the Australian calendar. It’s

internationally prominent amongst the two hundred such events held

annually, and is perhaps comparable in scope and influence to the oldest

arts biennale, that in Venice. And it’s brought to you by Transfield.

Transfield founder Franco Belgiorno-Nettis is also Biennale of Sydney

founder Franco Belgiorno-Nettis. For 41 years the Biennale of Sydney has

been the centrepiece of Transfield’s arts empire. Transfield Holdings

operates an “art rental program” leasing out works from its expensive

private collection. The Transfield Foundation (a joint venture of

Transfield Services and Transfield Holdings!) pours money into the

Australian Chamber Orchestra, and coincidentally, the Chairman of the

Australia Chamber Orchestra is one Guido Belgiorno-Nettis, Executive

Director of Transfield Holdings.

Art is a big deal for this company. It’s not just culture wash (although

its value as culture-wash is extensive). Art, for Transfield, is about

status, prestige and legitimacy. It is no coincidence that the venues

for Biennale events include the private residences of Transfield

directors and executives.

It is for these reasons that a Sydney Arts educator, Matthew Kiem, has

published a call for a boycott of the Biennale of Sydney. If art means

as much to Transfield as its entanglements suggest, an arts boycott of

this company could at least inconvenience those involved in the

corporate facilitation of human misery. At the very least, a public

boycott of the Biennale of Sydney could undermine some of the

culture-wash that Transfield deploys to pretty up its image whilst it

works on the destruction of human lives.

It is interesting to note just how defensive the Biennale of Sydney have

been to criticism of Transfield Services. On their official twitter

account the Biennale organisers wrote:

“RE: comments on BOS sponsors: BOS brings attn 2 the ideas & issues of

our times – objectors only deny the legitimate voice of BOS artists”

The irony could not be more obvious if it were deliberately constructed.