Council in censorship scandal

MELBOURNE — Canberra's 18, a new work by artist Azlan McLennan, due to appear in the Platform exhibition space in Flinders Street Station, has been barred from exhibition by the Melbourne City Council.

The work was to list the 18 "terrorist" organisations banned in Australia, with a photo of each group's spiritual leader and an explanation — sourced from government agencies and the corporate media — of the reasons for their formation. McLennan explained that the work "attempts to illustrate that these organisations no longer serve the political opportunism of Western governments".

Platform Artist Group (PAG), the organisation that runs the exhibition space, is funded by the Melbourne City Council. The council rejected the work on the grounds that it expected the exhibition display cases to be vandalised. According to PAG's Simone Ewenson, if they had breached their agreement with the council and gone ahead with the exhibition, their "lease wouldn't have been renewed, there would be no future funding from City of Melbourne" and all 2005 funding would have to be repaid.

Last year, another of McLennan's artworks, which was critical of Israeli state repression of Palestine, was also censored.

Michael Ascroft

From Green Left Weekly, September 21, 2005.

Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.

From GLW issue 643