Artists and activists withdraw works, call for boycott of Concordia’s gallery
Pro-Palestine activists continue to voice their concerns about censorship at Concordia
Several artists have withdrawn their work from Concordia University’s Leonard & Bina Ellen Art Gallery, joining activists in a boycott over what they describe as the university’s censorship of pro-Palestine voices.
On Aug. 18, Regards Palestiniens, Academics and Staff for Palestine Concordia, and the collective Stop Artwashing released a statement advocating for the full boycott of the gallery. The organizations claim that artists featured in a screening of the video installation An Image Before Last withdrew their work, leading to the screening’s cancellation.
The artists’ decision was made in protest against the use of their work “to artwash Concordia University’s suppression of Palestine solidarity at the gallery and on campus,” according to the organization’s statement.
According to a Facebook post made by the gallery, the two-day screening program of An Image Before Last was cancelled following the request of the participating filmmakers—Noor Abed, Batoul Faour, Yazan Khalili, Maissa Maatouk, Walid Raad, Ghassan Salhab and Ghinwa Yassine—to have their films withheld from the program. This also includes the works of Chantal Partamian, which were on display in the Gallery vitrine.
The gallery says the artists have deemed Concordia a site “incompatible for the presentation of their works,” according to the Facebook post.
The boycott comes after months of tensions between the Concordia administration and the gallery’s artists and advisory council.
On Oct. 11, 2024, the gallery, alongside the Regards Palestiniens collective, organized a screening and fundraiser of the documentary Resistance, Why? at Concordia’s J.A. DeSève Cinema. On the evening of Oct. 10, the university’s Campus Safety and Prevention Services (CSPS) sent the gallery a notice for the postponement of the screening due to a need for additional information and review.
As an act of protest, the collective projected the film onto the wall of Concordia’s Henry F. Hall Building at the corner of Mackay St. and de Maisonneuve Blvd. W. There, they were surrounded by nine cop cars, including a cop van, and more cops than people, the collective told The Link at the time.
Two weeks later, on Oct. 31, 2024, around three dozen autonomous students led a demonstration in front of the Concordia Guy-De Maisonneuve building, calling for an end to police presence on campus. The demonstration resulted in two arrests, which were made outside the gallery and followed by detention inside its premises.
A month later, in November 2024, the gallery hosted a silent protest against Concordia’s lack of action regarding student arrests on campus and the termination of the gallery’s then director, Pip Day.
In January 2025, five members of the gallery’s advisory council resigned in protest following the dismissal of Day. In their resignation letter, the members said they believed Day’s dismissal was due to “her support of artists, students, and community groups who have spoken out on behalf of Palestinians.”
With the ongoing call for a boycott of the gallery, participating organizations have continued to demand on their Instagram that Concordia reschedule the censored Resistance, Why? screening and its fundraisers.
According to Vannina Maestracci, Concordia’s spokesperson, the university asked the organizers if they wanted to reserve the space for a later time and reschedule the screening. Space can be booked at the university by following the process for doing so and providing the relevant information.
Regards Palestiniens also demand that the university investigate the role of donor intervention in the gallery’s censorship, to divest from funds related to the occupation of Palestine, and to set up guidelines to prevent police brutality, student arrests and repression of Palestinian voices on campus.
According to an anonymous representative from Regards Palestiniens, the group's communication with the university has been met with “a pattern of avoidance and non-acknowledgement.”
“While the admin is aware of our demands, they have not been addressed,” they said in an email to The Link. “Neither the university nor the new directorship of the Leonard & Bina Ellen Gallery has acknowledged these events. Their ongoing silence is a deliberate choice to avoid engaging with their culpability in the political suppression that occurred on campus.”
According to Maestracci, the current director of the gallery has reached out to Regards Palestiniens representatives. She also claimed in an email to The Link that the university has not restricted any demonstrations or events.
“It’s regrettable that some groups have called for artists, including Palestinian ones, to boycott the Ellen Gallery, and by doing so are restricting these artists’ capacity to showcase their work,” she said.
Maestracci further clarified that the gallery’s new director, Nicole Burisch, has established new protocols to avoid intervention by the police and is also working with CSPS to sensitize agents to the particularities of exhibition spaces on campus.
“The gallery has no input into decisions made by the Montreal police,” Maestracci said.
Regards Palestiniens said they hope that the boycott serves as a protest against the exploitation of artistic work to artwash the university’s suppression of pro-Palestine voices both at the gallery and across campus.
This article originally appeared in Volume 46, Issue 2, published September 16, 2025.
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