Three statements now posted at entrance to controversial Whitworth exhibition

The controversial “Cloud Studies” exhibition at Manchester’s Whitworth Art Gallery has descended into a running battle between the show’s creators, the research group Forensic Architecture, and members of the local Jewish community. The exhibition reflects the environmental effects of toxic clouds in places such as Indonesia, Argentina, Hong Kong, the UK, US, Mexico, Turkey, and Lebanon, but it also includes a significant section on Israel’s military action in Gaza and the West Bank.

There are now three separate statements at the entrance to the Whitworth Art Gallery: a Forensic Architecture statement, in which Israel is described as an “apartheid state” which has engaged in “ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians; a counter-statement from the Jewish community; and a counter-counter statement from the International Centre for Justice for Palestinians, giving a legal opinion as to why Forensic Architecture was correct to use such terms.

Last week a printed statement from Forensic Architecture, introducing visitors to the exhibition, was withdrawn by the Whitworth, a part of Manchester University, after protests from the North West Friends of Israel, the Manchester Jewish Representative Council, and UK Lawyers for Israel. The lawyers’ group had complained to Manchester University, querying whether the University had complied with its public sector equality duty to have due regard to the need to foster good relations between different communities”.

Forensic Architecture immediately said that if its opening statement did not appear, then it was demanding the closure of the entire exhibition. The Whitworth agreed, and after a temporary closure the Cloud Studies show re-opened on Wednesday — together with the Forensic Architecture original statement, in which Israel is described as “an apartheid state” which has engaged in “ethnic cleansing”.

In an article for the Guardian on Friday, the Forensic Architecture collective made a trenchant defence of its work, saying “our statement, whose inclusion in the exhibition had been approved during its planning stages by the Whitworth’s curators, was written as the[May] attacks were happening. We used terms such as “ethnic cleansing” and “apartheid” to describe the policies of the Israeli government in Palestine, because such characterisations describe the reality of Palestinian life and are in keeping with the language of major Israeli and international human rights organisations, and have of course been used by Palestinians for decades… If such terms are offensive, they are most offensive to those experiencing the everyday impact of such policies. Universities need to be places where such categories can be presented, developed and debated, and our battle to reinstate the statement was really about what could be said within an academic and cultural environment”.

But on Friday another statement was posted at the entrance to the exhibition, this time from the Jewish community. It vigorously attacks the claims made in the Forensic Architecture statement, saying “we ask visitors not to assume that any statement in that exhibition is true”. It says that “to claim that Israel is a colonial enterprise is antisemitic”, and adds that “there has been no ‘ethnic cleansing’ of Palestinians by Israeli police or settlers”.

However, Forensic Architecture’s director, Israeli Eyal Weizman, said on Sunday that the Whitworth had agreed to post a third statement from the ICJP, which describes itself as an independent group of “lawyers, politicians and academics who support the rights of Palestinians and aim to protect their rights through the law”.

Its lengthy statement supports the contentions of Forensic Architecture, giving legal opinion as to why its terminology was based on international law.

Mr Weizman wryly admitted that the plethora of statement and counter-statement was “a mishegas” and said that not every cultural contention necessarily needed “balance”. The exhibition, together with its blizzard of opinion, is due to run for another month.