We, the lumbung community (the artists and members of documenta fifteen), add our collective voices in support of the letter that was published on May 7 by ruangrupa, the artistic team of documenta fifteen, and some curators of the failed forum “We Need to Talk! Art – Freedom – Solidarity,” in response to the ripple effects of the false accusations of antisemitism made against some members of this lumbung community.
Since that time there has been further racist activity against us, and it has crossed over from the digital space into our physical spaces. On May 28, the exhibition and living spaces of documenta were broken into and defaced with what can only be interpreted as a death threat. This is a very worrying escalation of the situation that began almost six months ago here in Kassel.
We are united against the racist attacks that started this sequence of events. And we stand firmly against all forms of discrimination, including racist, xenophobic, antisemitic, sexist, transphobic, anti-Muslim, anti-Palestinian, anti-Roma, ableist, casteist, classist, and ageist actions and attacks.
We also express our dismay and disappointment at the amplification that the original baseless blog post of disinformation and manipulated content received in some of the mainstream media. We denounce the media participation in these smear campaigns.
We invite you to read the May 7 letter from ruangrupa here.
We look forward to seeing you during the hundred days of documenta fifteen.
Sincerely,