Free movement - visiting artists

Testimonial from an Artist, his Translator and Chili Hawes, Director of The October Gallery.

Testimonial from an Artist, his Translator and Chili Hawes, Director of The October Gallery. An Artist from Beijing and his translator were both refused a visa to attend the Artist’s own Private View at The October Gallery which opened in February 2009. Since all the visa applications in Beijing must be submitted through Visa Application Center (VAC) not British Embassy, the officer at VAC couldn’t advise us what type of visa we should apply. So based on our previous experiences about visa applications, we chose to apply for a visa as business visitors from a range of “General visitor, Family visitor, Business…

Free movement - visiting artists

Artists’ testimonies

The regulations, which were officially put into effect on 27 November 2008, have meant a number of artists have been refused entry. Read testimonies below, and email visitingartists@manifestoclub.com to post a comment. An update from Flavia D’Avila, a Brazilian theatre star Ruganzu Bruno, a Ugandan Visual Artist which tells the despairing narrative of how African artists are treated by visa officials who create an arduous, costly and impervious system that is insurmountable for up-and-coming artists who don’t earn a substantial income from their art. Read the full testimony. Flavia D’Avila is a theatre star facing deportation. Read the full testimony. Visual and…

EU • Events

PUBLIC MEETING – No Means No! – 8 December 2008, Brussels

On 11 December, EU leaders will meet to find what they call a ‘solution’ to the ‘Irish problem’ – Irish voters’ rejection of the Lisbon Treaty in their June referendum. The Manifesto Club will be taking our campaign for popular democracy to the heart of Brussels – to expose the contemptuous attitude of European elites towards their publics, and to start to build a cross-European alliance for freedom and against bureaucracy. 8 DECEMBER, NO MEANS NO! – MEETING IN BRUSSELS We are delighted to be co-organising a discussion – with the think-tank, Open Europe – in the centre of Brussels, three days…

Uncategorised

Towards a Free Art School

‘Towards a Free Art School’, a text by the Manifesto Club Artistic Autonomy hub, was presented by Doug Fishbone, at the Serpentine Gallery Manifesto Marathon, 19 October 2008. (Photos – of Doug Fishbone, and of members of the Artistic Autonomy Hub –…

Blog • Vetting

Flats halted because balconies have ‘view of school’

The sight and sound of children playing could be delightful or irritating, depending on your point of view. Yet now a school has blocked a planning application for new flats in Hornsey, north London, on the basis that the flats’ balconies will overlook a children’s playground. Chairman of the school governors said that these properties overlooking the playground could be bait to paeodphiles. ‘We’ve all read of cases where there have been examples of parents, families, fathers who are involved with child pornography regardless of whether they have got their own children or not. It’s not acceptable’, he said. The chairman conjured…

Blog • Vetting

Children’s authors under suspicion

Being a children’s author was once a charming career, building mysterious worlds of fantasy trees and secret adventures. Yet children’s authors do meet a lot of children: they do readings with children, they get letters from children; they are admired by children. And this, according to Ofsted, makes them a potential risk. Before, Ofsted decided that children’s authors did not need a CRB check, but that they should not be left alone with children when they visited schools. Now the organisation has decided that they do need to be checked, even if they are supervised, ‘because there is a chance for authors…