I write as a Sydney-based design educator.
The 19th Biennale of Sydney is sponsored by Transfield, a company contracted to run Australian detention centres, which they do on a for-profit basis. Transfield Services Ltd recently announced plans to take on further work at the Manus Island and Nauru detention centres.
This means that profits from mandatory detention fund the Biennale.
Clearly, the most appropriate response to this situation is to boycott the Biennale. While this may feel as though we are giving something up, it is in fact one of the best opportunities we have to make a material impact on the supply chains that permit the detention industry to work.
We are in a particularly strong position here given that our decisions could have the effect of redirecting a significant number of students, income, and kudos away from detention funded cultural events and towards other kinds of experiences and discussions.
Working with colleagues to make this a group decision, and conveying this to the organisers of the Biennale (as letters and/or petitions) would multiply the impact even more.
A strong response this year is the best way to ensure that future Biennale’s are not funded through the enforced misery of others.
UPDATE: Click here for related links and latest developments.
xBorder 
This is a strong call and far from a silent protest, but needs more NOISE if it’s not to be smothered. The BoS Wikipedia page has been updated but the only article so far is on Arts Hub behind a pay wall.
Write to your media contacts and peers people! In and out of the art world.
And read and comment on Matt’s article due up on http://theconversation.com/au tomorrow morning (12/2/14).
Thanks for all the work so far and for bringing this into view.
[…] After receiving marketing from the Biennale and a suggestion to take my students to the event I was faced with a clear choice: could I support an event funded by profits of mandatory detention, a policy slammed by the UNHCR as inhumane and non-compliant with international law? My answer: emphatically, no. […]
[…] suppressing the urge to tell the kids to STOP TOUCHING THE ARTWORKS. So when Matthew Kiem’s call to boycott the event started doing the rounds – over its sponsorship ties to Transfield, one of the contractors that […]
[…] call for action began with a February 4 open letter by Matt Kiem, a Sydney-based academic and self-described “design educator,” on the blog […]
[…] combination of such a contract being awarded and the timing of the Biennale, sparked a backlash from artists and refugee advocacy groups, particularly RISE (Refugees, Survivors and Ex-Detainees). Multiple […]
[…] call to boycott the 19th Sydney Biennale was made in an open letter by a Sydney arts educator, Matt Kiem. However, this was a step along a path that leads back to the […]
[…] is for these reasons that a Sydney Arts educator, Matthew Kiem, has published a call for a boycott of the Biennale of Sydney. If art means as much to Transfield as its entanglements suggest, an arts boycott of this company […]
Reblogged this on lesleywalk.
[…] The links between Transfield and imperative apprehension were initial brought to a courtesy by an article published in Feb on a Australian limit politics–focused website Crossborder Operational Matters. […]