Collective of Seattle Art Museum Workers Call for a Boycott of the Museum – Slog

Decolonize SAM calls for a boycott of the museum because of its policy towards the homeless. Photo via SAM

This afternoon, a collective of Seattle Art Museum staff and “community allies” are calling for a boycott of two policy administrators announced earlier this summer: installing “hostile architecture” to deter homeless people from camping outside the museum in the downtown area, and hiring a private security company to monitor the perimeter of the building.

In a press release, Decolonize SAM urged supporters to take part in four actions: termination of their SAM memberships, donations and partnerships; provide feedback to the SAM leadership on the museum’s policy towards the homeless; “Raising awareness” of the boycott via social media platforms; and support local organizations “run and centered on the people of the global majority”. They also set up a website and social media accounts to help spread their message.

“The boycott will not be lifted until the Seattle Art Museum has undone the installation of hostile architecture and the suspension of private security services, and is committed to creating an accessible, useful experience for all visitors – regardless of location and socioeconomic status, mental or physical ability . “Wrote the group in their press release.

I’ve reached out to the Seattle Art Museum and will update this post as soon as I hear from you. UPDATE 9/8: In an email, a SAM representative wrote of Decolonize SAM’s call to boycott, “It has been disappointing to see this reaction to our decision to try to protect our employees and visitors.”

As The Stranger reported back in June, SAM leadership announced to staff via internal email that the museum would implement the two guidelines for homeless people following physical incidents involving staff outside the building.

Beware of further criminalization of the homeless, frontline personnel suggested alternatives to leadership’s guidelines – such as providing containers for sharp objects and mitigation training for current SAM security – which they believed were ignored. This prompted employees who organized themselves under the name SAM Workers to create and start a public petition that has garnered over 550 signatures in the past few weeks. The group calling for the boycott is different from SAM Workers but has overlapping members.

Decolonize SAM’s press release claims that the SAM leadership set up a “Special Advisory Task Force on Homelessness” in response to employees’ concerns about the new guidelines. According to Decolonize SAM, however, this task force consists of only five people: SAM Director and CEO Amada Cruz; Director of Justice, Diversity and Inclusion, Priya Frank; and three museum board members, excluding less senior executives.

The group also claims that SAM workers have long been plagued by a “culture of harassment, retaliation and intimidation” that has loudly challenged SAM’s policies. They also claim that complaints from workers to Human Resources about “racism, ableism, misogyny, sexual harassment” and concerns about SAM’s “relaxed” COVID-19 safety policy have “also been ignored”. Again, I have asked SAM for a comment and will update their response to these claims.

The new bollards, which workers refer to as “hostile architecture”, could prevent people from pitching tents near the entrance to 1. and Universitätsstraße. PHOTO VIA SAM WORKERS

In its press release, Decolonize SAM said that Star Protection Agency guards started working at the museum last week. In a separate email, a Decolonize SAM representative, pleading for anonymity in fear of retaliation, noted that for the week or so since the private guards were on staff, there had been an “increase in negative interactions” between guards and unaccompanied People gave with “up to four [incident reports] in a day, which is not normal at all. ”

In a statement to The Stranger in June, a museum spokesman said SAM had attempted to hire “unarmed” outside security guards with “specific training, including de-escalation and other harm reduction methods,” similar to the guards employed by the museum’s Olympic sculpture Park. The Decolonize SAM representative said the group considered the boycott “necessary” after the SAM leadership officially closed the private security company and “made it clear that they would not consider any alternatives to hiring outside security personnel”.

The other policy, implemented in late June, involved installing two stone bollards in an alcove near the Hammering Man entrance on 1st two sheets of plywood from their pandemic closure.

While the two sheets of plywood have since been removed, the Decolonize SAM representative said that a flashing light has now been installed in the alcove to “keep people from sleeping there”. UPDATE 9/8: According to SAM, no new flashlight was installed, but the current lamp has “been in operation for several years” and “is defective and flickering”. The museum representative also said SAM “has no plans to remove the bollards”.

“The boycott of SAM decolonize is part of a larger attempt to highlight and dismantle the settler-colonialist structures that exist in museums today,” the group wrote in its press release. “Investing in the privatization and surveillance of common spaces perpetuates the damage done to marginalized people and is an abuse of SAM’s funds that should be used to reverse that damage.”

Check out the Decolonize SAM website and call for a boycott here.