Italian Arts Collectives Call For ‘General Cultural Strike’ On June 12
11June 10, 2026
Italian culture workers and arts collectives announced this week that they would be joining trade unions and other organizations across the country in participating in a “general cultural strike” on June 12. The strike will focus on supporting Palestine and championing workers’ rights.The organizations who communicated on Monday that they’d be part of the effort include the Art Not Genocide Alliance (ANGA); S.a.L.E. Docks, an independent arts and politics space founded in 2007; Biennalocene, an assembly of art and culture workers in Venice that was formed in 2023; and Galassia, which describes itself as an “Antizionist assembly of art and cultural workers.”“This strike connects the precarious conditions that affect cultural workers to the broader fight against the institutions that enable genocide through art-washing and arms funding,” ANGA said in a statement posted to Instagram. “Because the conditions that make cultural work unstable—short contracts, unpaid labour, no benefits, no job security—are the same conditions that allow institutions to look away from genocide.”The general strike was planned as part of the momentum built by the massive, thousands-strong pro-Palestine and pro-workers strike that took place on May 8 in protest of this year’s Venice Biennale’s inclusion of Israel and Russia.According to Hyperallergic, at least twenty-seven of the Biennale’s national pavilions closed partially or fully due to the May 8 strike. Prior to that day, the beleaguered Biennale had already seen protests from a group of artists who moved to “sonically occupy” the entrance to the Giardini della Biennale in order to call attention to the war in Palestine, as well as from the dissident artists Pussy Riot, who waved Ukrainian flags while descending upon the Russian pavilion.“June 12 is the next step in a sustained effort to bring political praxis into the foreground of making culture, making art, and making space,” ANGA told Hyperallergic in a statement. In addition to “fair work and fair pay,” ANGA’s list of demands within the call to a general strike include “universal welfare” and “whole-person health.” Related New York’s New School Slashes Staff, Tenured Faculty Venice Biennale Faces Legal Action After Including 100+ Artists in Prize Competition Against Their Wishes