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An Open Letter on ISSUE Project Room's Silence Around the Genocide in Palestine, from Musicians and Music Industry Workers

To the Leadership and Board of ISSUE Project Room, 

We are a coalition of musicians and music industry workers based in New York City. We write in rage and grief at the US-backed genocide in Gaza and its recent extension to Lebanon, and in profound disappointment with the response of Issue Project Room (IPR) in this historical moment. We make an urgent call on IPR and venues, performance spaces, labels, and cultural institutions in general to take immediate action to protect artists’ and workers’ freedom of speech, to cut ties with all interests fueling the genocide in Gaza, and to support the emancipatory struggle of the Palestinian people.

To date, many current and former artist residents of IPR, as well as their own workers, have called on the venue to support Palestine and have been met with deflections, obfuscations, and attempts at censorship by IPR's director, Zev Greenfield. We are aware of the censorship of pro-Palestinian sentiments in Evil Dentist’s land acknowledgement at the 2023 IPR gala, the cancellation of an event due to IPR’s silence surrounding the genocide in Gaza, and the thwarting and avoidance of multiple attempts by artists and community members to engage with ISSUE on these matters. This is unacceptable. We, members of the broader music community, demand that IPR meet the basic necessities of this time.

One year after Israel began its brutal assault, there is nowhere safe in Gaza. This unchecked violence against Palestinians, supported by U.S. funds and weapons, must end. Israel's long history of apartheid and egregious human rights violations in Palestine goes back over 75 years and continues to directly affect members of our community, whose loved ones have been murdered and displaced. We reject genocide, colonial expansion, and cultural erasure in Palestine and across the world. This is the bare minimum moral stance, and we will accept nothing less from the spaces which use our art to maintain cultural legitimacy.

In this broader context, it is important for institutions to live up to the principles of liberation which the artists who inhabit these spaces uphold. Over the past year, there have been many instances of artists and cultural workers facing retaliation for showing solidarity with Palestine. Artists and workers have been explicitly censored and fired, and hosting institutions have failed to protect artists from zionist harassment and physical intimidation. As a result, venue workers are afraid of losing their jobs for speaking up. This leads to an atmosphere of fear and self-censorship, and a lack of trust between artists, workers, and the leadership in the institutions that support their work. 

Many of us with ties to IPR have made consistent good-faith attempts to address the normalization of genocide and anti-Palestinian racism by director Zev Greenfield. We are incredibly frustrated by the continued avoidance and/or silence he has offered us in response, which is in blatant contradiction with the values IPR claims to uphold. According to IPR’s website, these values include showcasing artists “underrepresented as a result of bias within the fields of art and performance, and broader histories of social and economic participation.” Silence and censorship are not apolitical stances; they justify genocide and fail artists and cultural workers who stand against genocide. For cultural institutions and their communities to flourish, it is imperative that artists and workers be protected from censorship and harassment. Without their labor and support, institutions would be a shell of themselves. 

We demand that ISSUE Project Room:

• Publicly support a ceasefire and arms embargo to end Israel’s genocidal violence.

• Make the organization's sources of funding transparent and public.

• Protect artists and workers from censorship and harassment due to pro-Palestine expression.

• Commit to amplifying Palestinian voices in your institution’s programming, communications, and workforce.

Our call stems from a long lineage of musicians and music workers fighting for liberation. This includes the struggle against racism in the US, colonialism everywhere, and the movement to end apartheid in South Africa. We call on all members of our community, especially institutions that have chosen silence and censorship, to vocally and materially uphold this lineage of justice in this pivotal moment. 

Sincerely,

NYC Musicians, Music Industry Workers, & Members of the ISSUE Community

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