Makroscope Cancels Film Screening Program by Tinne Zenner for Being a Letter Signatory of Palestine Solidarity Statements

On November 1, 2023, Tinne Zenner received an email from Makroscope, a socio-cultural art and culture center in Mülheim an der Ruhr, informing her about the cancellation of her film screening program that was to take place on December 2. The program included her own films as well as a selection of curated works, and had been planned since March 2023.

In their email, Makroscope wrote, "The Makroscope as an institution takes a position that stands up for Israel's right to exist and its right to defend itself against Hamas terror – with all legitimate criticism of the settlements and the current warfare. Excerpts from your artist talk that you posted on Instagram and parts of the solidarity statements you signed that – as we read them – try to relativize the terrorist massacre of Hamas as resistance and call for a boycott contradict our position. And they do it in a sense that we, as board of Makroscope, cannot imagine hosting you as our guest in December. The Makroscope is not only a place that hosts cultural events, but a political place of community. While that should mean looking for opportunities to stay in the conversation despite differences, we are just too concerned at the moment and consider the situation too sensitive to compromise."

Zenner had signed a declaration of support for Palestinians from creatives, media and cultural workers in Denmark containing the sentence, “We condemn all killings of civilians, whether Palestinian or Israeli, but insist that Hamas' recent militant attacks on Israel should be understood in the context of the Israeli state's escalating violence, colonialism, humiliation, and oppression of Palestinians over decades.” In the statement referenced by Makroscope, which Zenner posted in her Instagram stories with the title "Preparing an artist talk on coloniality & extractivism in the North" on October 19, she expressed sympathies with the “Palestinian victims of the 75 years of occupation, countless war crimes and the current mass destruction of Gaza carried out by the settler colonial Israeli state." According to Zenner, Makroscope neither sought clarification on this statement nor reached out for a dialogue before the cancellation.

Tinne Zenner is a visual artist, filmmaker and programmer whose artistic practice is critically engaged with the structural traces of the Danish colonial ventures in Greenland. In an Instagram post on November 16, following the cancellation, Zenner wrote, “I have been openly critical of Israel's violation of Palestinian rights for as long as I can remember. Coming from Jewish decent with a father born during the WWII in 1942, whose path in life has been severely marked by German nazism and the silent cooperation of Denmark, I feel it is my responsibility to take a stance against the continuous violence and violation of human rights by the Israeli settler state in the name of Judaism.”