Update 8. oct:

In the light of the online debate generated in social media after Medialab MX launched the public manifesto of support to the volunteer, we believe it is the time to rethink our position and line of action regarding what happened. First to publicly express a firm commitment from Piksel and its community in preventing any attack on freedom of the individual and against all violence, especially against women. And secondly, we want to point out the principles of transparency and community that guides the management and activities of Piksel, principles that we followed in our initial management of the incident, but unfortunately seems to have not been satisfactory for the volunteer according to her later complaint letter.

Piksel will again apologise to our volunteer for any inconvenience or discomfort caused by the publishing of the video and her participation in the performance. We are deeply sorry that our initial effort did not meet the expectations of the volunteer. At no time have we wanted to avoid our responsibility in this matter and for that reason we have taken this into consideration. We may not have had enough sensitivity to handle something this difficult. We live in a patriarchal society that sometimes puts our belief systems and values to the test, which does not stop being oriented towards equality and the elimination of any type of violence.

Acknowledging the request from the volunteer, we are therefore removing the video and images of the performance showing an alleged harassment during Piksel Festival 2017. This is done to avoid any more inconvenience and possible identification for the persons involved. The video and images will still be kept in our private archives as documentation in a possible police or court case.

Piksel takes everything that happens in the festival very seriously. We believe, both cultural organizations and artists must learn how to deal with this kind of situations, and that the only way of dealing with it must be based in the principle of transparency. Transparency must work in a bi-directional way, only like that we will be able to identify and to learn how to deal with this kind of cases.

Following that principle, Piksel has contacted experts to help us cope with this situation, with the aim of learning to identify possible inappropriate situations that may occur in the course of an artistic intervention (or similar) and thus, continue growing in creating artistic spaces that generate fair, equal and equitable synergies.

Piksel is working to develop an ethical framework that provides clear guidelines for acceptable behavior during the festival development in order to ensure a good working environment and safe festival experiences for all involved. Piksel will publish this ethical framework when itโ€™s ready in our webpage.

 


 

Chronology:

About the warning case at Piksel Festival 2017 which involved one of the artists and one ofย  the Piksel volunteers during her collaboration in the artists performance.

It has come to our attention that Medialab MX has published a report on their website containing serious allegations against Piksel and alleged sexual harassment during this performance. Piksel is against any harassment, inside or outside the festival frame and we believe that this is implicit in the Piksel values and that the Piksel community knows that. Here is our version of the case.

 

17th Nov 2017

  • Piksel handled the case in its full magnitude immediately after it happened in a public internal meeting involving the artist, the volunteer, other participants and Piksel representatives.

 

3rd Feb 2018

  • Piksel has on several occasions contacted and talked to the volunteer about the situation and the volunteer did not signal any further measures. She was satisfied in how the case was handled.

 

26th of June 2018

  • Piksel was contacted by the Norwegian Embassy in Mexico about the case and agreed with them that the volunteer should request action from the police to re-open the case.
  • Piksel did not receive any further request from the volunteer or the police to re-open the case.

 

17th July 2018

  • The volunteer address our sponsors with a sexual harassment report and other documents.

 

31st of July 2018

  • Piksel receives an email from Medialab MX and recommends again to them and the volunteer to ask for police action if they think the case should be re-opened. We had no answer back.

 

28th of August 2018

  • We received documents stating serious sexual allegations against Piksel from our sponsors in Norway.
  • In these documents the volunteer request our sponsors to cut all financial support and also requires an economic compensation.
  • There is also a letter from women participants at Piksel that was never sent to Piksel, instead we got noticed about it directly from the Arts Council in Norway.
  • Medialab MX or the volunteer did not send any documents to Piksel.

 

2nd October 2018

  • Medialab MX considers that the case is not closed but instead of asking in a formal letter to re-open, they publish a public document on internet with false allegations against Piksel.
  • Neither Medialab MX nor the volunteer make a formal request to the police to open an investigation, as Piksel recommended in our email to them.

 

current status

  • Piksel has carried out investigations of the case asking external experts on gender issues and sexual harassment, and also getting legal advice.
  • Based on these investigations, Piksel sees no grounds to re-open the case.
  • Piksel takes all notices of critical circumstances seriously and we are concerned that both employees and participants of the festival have safe and healthy working conditions where mutual respect and openness are important factors for creating a good working environment.
  • Piksel is working internally to develop an ethical framework that provides clear guidelines for acceptable behavior during the festival development.
  • Piksel will publish this ethical framework when we think it’s ready for publication.

 


 

edit: The first version of this statement contained a link to a video of the performance. This link has now bee removed as it can lead to the identification of the persons involved in the case. This version also contained the first name of one of the persons involved. This has now been removed. Piksel apologises for any disclosure of identity caused by this.