Artists withdraw from Berlin’s CTM Festival in support of Strike Germany

In another statement shared via its website, CTM, which operates as a not-for-profit, independent organisation but received a four-year funding commitment from the Berlin Senate for Culture last year, shared its concerns surrounding the clause, which read:

“CTM strongly shares the worries and concerns that the Berlin Council for the Arts, the Coalition of the Independent Scene, the bbk Berlin, inm berlin, LAFT Berlin, the Section Visual Arts of the Akademie der Künste, and the Berlin Film Festival Network have already expressed against the plans of the Berlin Senate for Culture to massively intervene in the freedom of the arts and especially future art funding with the administrative implementation of a so-called anti-discrimination clause. We therefore reject this clause in its current form, and emphatically endorse the appeal of the aforementioned groups and initiatives.”

Last week, after hosting a line-up of all Black artists in Berghain and Panorama Bar last year, New York’s dweller festival confirmed that they would not host an event in Berlin this year. “We made this decision a while ago due to the way German institutions were treating those opposing the current genocide in Palestine,” the team wrote in a statement shared on social media. “It’s now reached an absurd level of control.” 

Last year, an open letter created by Ravers For Palestine was signed by hundreds of DJs, producers, collectives and venues affiliated with London’s electronic music scene in solidarity with Palestine amid Israel’s “brutal and ongoing attack on Gaza”.