Bainbridge Island Muesum of Art Cancels Performance About The Genocide In Gaza

Just days before Saturday's event, The Bainbridge Island Museum of Art (BIMA) cancelled Kitsap Palestine Solidarity Coalition’s performance of “One Family In Gaza,” citing the “highly complex and sensitive nature of the ongoing Israel-Palestine conflict” that makes it “inappropriate for the museum to be seen as endorsing or aligning with one perspective over another.”

But there’s nothing neutral about censoring explicitly pro-Palestine art, particularly 600 days into a genocide wherein Israeli forces have killed at least 52,000 people, displaced 1.9 million, and destroyed more than 90% of all homes in Gaza. Rather, Kitsap Palestine Solidarity Coalition calls the cancellation an act of “appalling moral cowardice.”

Now, with a hole in their calendar, the group will hold a protest against censorship at BIMA at 2:30pm. Then, they plan to march to their new venue, Bainbridge Island Senior/Community Center, for a 4:30pm showing of “One Family In Gaza.”

BIMA admits in their statement that they caved to pressure, which they euphemistically called “careful consideration and dialogue.” BIMA clarified that the play was never a museum endorsed or curated event, but a private rental to use their space.

Still, BIMa wrote, “it has become apparent that the line between a BIMA event and a rental event isn’t always as clear as we’d like, and we will work to make changes inside the museum so that private event content is distinct from museum-sponsored presentations.”

BIMA continued, “In this case, the line has been blurred to an extent that the content and context of this particular event appear out of alignment with BIMA’s mission to serve and reflect our diverse community as a whole.”

Those who express support for Palestine across sectors understand that institutions carry out this sort of repression all the time. But the stakes seem especially high as Israel promises complete annihilation of the Palestinian people in Gaza and the Trump Administration threatens to send the genocide's political opponents to a death camp in El Salvador.

“Palestinian voices are systematically silenced in many spaces,” artist Moorea Seal wrote of her workplace BIMA on Instagram. “When a museum cancels a performance that amplifies those voices – not because of any safety concern, but because of its political content – it reinforces that silencing. That is the definition of censorship. It also sets a dangerous precedent in which:

emotional discomfort from the privileged is treated as justification for suppression of marginalized narratives.”