“In no direction was there anywhere to breathe,” she said. “I’m bound to confidentiality, so I cannot speak of these things.”
However, Lee said she “could not live with the level of violation I felt against one of my core values, that the artist’s voice must never be silenced”.
In Sabsabi’s video installation You (2007) former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah recites the words “O most honourable, pure, and generous people, may God’s peace, mercy, and blessings be upon you… ” His presence is repeated over two channels, across a screen that gradually splinters into a mosaic of images.
“Artists make visible all the invisible things that make us. It is the only thing we have to reflect on ourselves.”
Calls are mounting among Australian artists to reject any attempt by the board to replace the duo, opening the way for the pavilion to be dark at Venice.
No artist of any conscience should accept the show in place of Khaled Sabsabi, fellow western Sydney artist Garry Trinh said in a social media post.
In an open letter to the board, the five other shortlisted entrants called for Creative Australia to reinstate Sabsabi, whose proposal was “selected by industry-led experts through a rigorous and professionally independent open-call process”. None are expected to step up in Sabsabi’s stead.
It was less than one year ago that Creative Australia was hailing the genius and bold artistic vision of Archie Moore at the Venice Biennale. Moore received a Gold Lion, the equivalent of an Olympic medal, for his entry, a moving chalked history of his ancestry.
Australia has formally participated at Venice since 1958.
The Creative Australia board was aware that Sabsabi’s selection might be controversial given events in the Middle East. He migrated to Australia with his family from Lebanon during that country’s civil war and he has taken strong political positions on the Gaza conflict. Sabsabi and Dagostino had promised an installation that united and did not divide.
