Manifesto Club

So if you haven't heard the news... I was planning a European & African Tour, flew halfway around the planet to make it happen... just to get arrested, detained and denied entrance at the London-Heathrow Airport ...and sent back to New York City. It's a long story that i wrote about a few blog entries ago, and it also was written about on Last Night's Mixtape, Publicola, KOMO News and it even got a shout-out in The Stranger... but that's not what this is about. In the midst of the madness, i became aware of an organization based in the UK that is organizing against the Home Office restrictions on non-EU artists and academics. Apparently, in November of last year, the Home Office issued a 158-page document of new regulations for visiting artists and academics. According to this document, for an artist or educator to do a single event in England... you have to submit biometric data in advance, fingerprints, have at least $1600 sitting in a savings account for over 3 months... and the hosting organization has to be aware of the artists or educators whereabouts, 24/7. It's the most ridiculous list of requirements for an artist to get into a country i've ever seen... So what happened to me is far from an isolated incident. According to this article published in The Times last summer, the new regulations have brought ballet companies to the brink of collapse and had an effect on just about every kind of artist you could think of. Moral of the story? Read and sign this petition. And if your an artist or educator who is not based in Europe, and planning to go to the UK for an event? Hit up The Manifesto Club first... and pass that info on to anyone else who might be travelling to the UK. Me personally? I'll never fly into London again, unless it's from somewhere else in Europe.

Again, that website is http://www.manifestoclub.com/visitingartists

peace
-- gt