In its May 2023 report on ‘Defending Creative Voices: Artists in Emergencies, Learning from the Safety of Journalists’, UNESCO called for more protection for artists under attack.
The new study from ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen “The Fragile Triangle of Artistic Freedom: A Study of the Documentation and Monitoring of Artistic Freedom in the Global Landscape” by Ole Reitov and Sara Whyatt explores the current status of artistic freedom monitoring and documentation systems. It identifies gaps in the promotion and protection of artistic freedom, including what is needed to address them, and points to a number of positive developments as well as negative trends. Unlike media protection organisations, which receive verified documentation on attacks on media professionals from professional unions as well as individuals from all over the world, the CSOs documenting artistic freedom violations rarely receive any information from organisations representing artists. Added to this are the ‘under-the-radar’ examples of self-censorship by artists, curators, librarians, galleries, film distributors and producers, and others working across the cultural value chain.