There isn’t anything wrong with creating political art. It’s important to remember this as the controversy at York University unfolds regarding a mural in the student centre depicting a Palestinian gazing at a bulldozer, holding rocks behind him.
Artists create brilliant and hard-hitting works of art in times of crisis.
Paul Bronfman is well within his rights to withdraw his funding of York’s film department, but that doesn’t mean York students need to stop creating work that is meaningful to them—nor does vandalizing the Carleton Palestinian Students’ Association’s mural mean that they will cease being an active association on campus. Since art is often a response to injustice or a tense political situation, censoring art defeats the entire purpose of creating art in the first place. Students who feel differently are equally within their rights to create art as a response instead of attempting to silence it.
As Chinese artist Ai Weiwei has said, “Everything is art, everything is politics.” And it would be an insult to the principles of a civilized democracy and a society that respects the right to free speech to separate the two by censoring this discourse, whether it occurs in print, in speech, or through art.
