Statement of Solidarity

We—an independent collective of artists and cultural practitioners, workers and individuals who contribute our time and energy to the sector—raise our voices in solidarity with artist Gabrielle Goliath. Goliath’s work Elegy, proposed as the country’s sole submission for the South African pavilion at the 61st Venice Biennale, has reportedly been cancelled by Minister for Sport, Arts and Culture, Gayton McKenzie. He has stated that the work is ‘highly divisive in nature and relates to an ongoing international conflict that is widely polarizing’ and that it would have been funded by a foreign country. He has offered no substantiation to support the latter claim. 

We believe it is incumbent upon us, as South African artmakers and cultural workers of various affiliations, to stand in solidarity with Goliath and to defend our sector, our freedoms and our constitutional rights. 

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In less than two years of his tenure, McKenzie has, on more than one occasion, flouted his mandate, which, in accordance with the South African Constitution, is to ‘develop, transform, preserve, protect and promote sport, arts and culture at all levels of participation to foster an active, winning, creative and socially cohesive nation’.

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It is McKenzie’s foundational duty as Arts Minister to safeguard the arts and cultural environment and its institutions, and to make available tools, funding and support to enable the outward expansion of the sector. 

On more than one occasion, McKenzie has ignored industry expertise and best-practice approaches, rejecting the guidance of those with decades-long experience in actually developing, transforming, preserving, protecting and promoting the arts. More troubling is the fact that the Minister has allowed his own world view and ideological biases to influence decisions about the arts and culture sector in a way that has been deleterious to our arts and artists and, by extension, to the South African people. 

In addition to his withdrawal of support for Goliath’s work for the 2026 Venice Biennale, he has declined to renew funding for annual events, including the National Arts Festival (NAF) in Makhanda, a festival that, according to a government website, is ‘the biggest annual celebration of the arts on the African continent and consists of drama, dance, theatre, comedy, opera, music, jazz, visual art exhibitions, film, lectures, a craft fair and workshops, as well as a children’s festival’.            

How might it be in the interests of the sector, and indeed of the country, to defund a festival that has existed for 50 years and which remains a generative locus for new talent and work? The NAF ensures a ripple effect of arts productions and projects across the country, many of which travel internationally, some in perpetuity across the decades. Goliath’s Elegy was itself performed at the Festival in 2018. 

The Festival’s crucial significance for the creative sector is right there in its name: National Arts Festival. Despite the fact that the NAF is not guaranteed public funding, it has, over decades— with artistic enterprise, will power and the labour of generations of artists—been a beacon. 

McKenzie’s stated intention to ‘support new and different festivals and new entrants into the space so that people with fresh and innovative ideas also get a chance’ does not stand when his actions hamper the sector, disabling opportunities for artists to earn, many of whom rely on festivals such as this one, as infrequent chances to work. The NAF and its Fringe, when leveraged and supported with public funding, enable professional and emerging theatre, dance, music and other live performances to long outlive their initial presentations in Makhanda, pulling in other artists and manifesting as new productions in new locales. In the presence of appropriate public support and recognition, the NAF is the site where new voices with ‘fresh and innovative ideas’ emerge. The Arts Minister would know this

if he had his ear to the ground, listening to and working with experts in the field. 

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McKenzie has also declined to fund various other projects, including the popular and muchloved Open Book Festival in Cape Town, which, over 15 years, has grown from small niche gatherings to joyous halls packed with readers and writers, and discussions reflective of the books being written and read across this country and the many national dialogues taking place. Here, books are sold, new writers are given platforms, readers are made, and the industry is grown. This information has been placed before McKenzie, but it has not moved him to act on behalf of the sector and to be of service to it as much as to lead it. 

Most concerning is McKenzie’s insistence on imposing his own ideological bent, particularly on the matter of the genocide in Gaza, in so doing breaking with official South African government policy that has seen our country hold Israel accountable for the crime of genocide at the International Court of Justice. 

McKenzie has previously said: ‘My Bible commands me to stay with Israel. My Bible says to me that: He who curses Israel, is cursing himself. … I will not listen to the ANC, but to the Bible. I am a Christian, and I listen to the Bible’. 

The cancellation of Goliath’s work may not be the first time that McKenzie has shown bias. In February 2025, he overrode a proposed delegation of industry-selected and vetted writers to attend a book fair in Cuba, claiming that he wanted to ‘see more inclusion. … I was clear it should have Coloured and white people also’. This, too, is indicative of his ideological interference in the sector. The industry-supported list did, in fact, have a broad representation of writers, some outspoken against the genocide, who McKenzie replaced with his own delegation, most of whom were not considered to be writers with a ‘recognised profile’, according to a local publishing expert, but which did include supporters of his party and pro-Israeli clerics.

These decisions and actions—certainly McKenzie’s decision concerning Goliath’s artwork— constitute stealth forms of censorship, impeding our constitutional rights to freedom of expression and freedom of speech.

We urge arts and cultural practitioners to stand in solidarity with Gabrielle Goliath and this statement, and we call on the South African government to address these serious concerns regarding a minister who is not paying heed to the skilled professionals within the sector, nor to his mandate. His decisions are undermining the vital functioning of the arts and culture sector and inhibiting our artists from earning. 

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South African Bill of Rights, Section 16:

16. Freedom of expression

1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression, which includes—

1. freedom of the press and other media;

2. freedom to receive or impart information or ideas;

3. freedom of artistic creativity; and

4. academic freedom and freedom of scientific research. 2. The right in subsection (1) does not extend to—

1. propaganda for war;

2. incitement of imminent violence; or

3. advocacy of hatred that is based on race, ethnicity, gender or religion, and that constitutes incitement to cause harm.