Text for session 4, Saturday 10th October, 2-4pm - John Berger letter

Follow link to http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=415 for a full copy of the letter.

John Berger's letter of 2006 followed Israel's attack on Lebanon. It called for a cultural boycott directed against Israel's regime of occupation and was signed by 93 other writers, artists and filmakers. It was published in the Guardian that year.

The discussion will raise the question of the necessity and validity of a Boycott, particularly when applied to cultural events, institutions, works and artists, as well as the role that artists can play in the campiagn against the occupation and in activism more generally.

The venue for this session will be Goshka Macuga's installation at the Whitechapel Gallery, The Nature of The Beast, which centres around Picasso's great anti-war painting Guernica and the way its image has been variously employed, appropriated and fought over, not least of all serving as a rallying point and protest image for anti-war activists over the years. Continuing that vein in the picture's dispersal, Berger also included a drawing after Guernica with his letter. Check out http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/exhibitions/the-bloomberg-commission-goshka-macuga-the-nature-of-the-beast for images of the installation and more details about its history.

Btw there is also an interesting documentary about the occupation in Hebron (http://www.welcometohebron.com/film.html) which is currently screening in the installation .

For directions see http://www.whitechapelgallery.org/visit

Till the 10th!