CICC Statement on the Partnership between Centre Pompidou and the Hanwha Corporation

Palestine solidarity action against Hanwha Pompidou, Seoul. Photo credit: Hong Jiyoung (W/O F.)

CICC Statement on the Partnership between Centre Pompidou and the Hanwha Corporation

As co-founders of the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC), we are deeply concerned to learn of the partnership between the Centre Pompidou in Paris and the Hanwha Corporation, which uses its cultural foundation to whitewash its dangerous role as a producer of artillery systems, missiles, military electronics, armored vehicles, naval systems, and ammunition. The company has expanded globally as part of South Korea’s growing arms-export sector and has partnered with Israeli defense firms Elbit Systems and Elta Systems, thereby enabling the ongoing genocide in Palestine.

Hanwha’s role in large-scale militarization and heavy industry is directly implicated in high carbon emissions and ecological destruction: genocide goes hand in hand with ecocide. This was also the central subject of our project Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes: Extinction Wars, a series of public hearings and a major exhibition on climate crimes committed by the Korean state and Korean corporations. The project formed the contribution to the Dutch Pavilion at the 2023 Gwangju Biennale at the Gwangju Art Museum, and was co-produced with Framer Framed, Amsterdam. We developed the project and its public hearings in collaboration with peace and climate justice activists across Korea, with the Hanwha Corporation among those accused.

The fact that the curator of our project, Juhyun Cho, has been hired by Centre Pompidou Hanwha — despite having co-initiated our hearings against Hanwha and having heard extensive evidence of climate crimes and human rights abuses committed by the corporation — comes as a profound shock and represents a serious breach of trust not only towards ourselves but more importantly toward all the activists and campaign groups in the Republic of Korea who contributed to our work. We stand firmly with those resisting the military-industrial complex and its dangers to peoples and ecosystems, and against the militarization of arts and culture. Against genocide and against ecocide. We stand opposed to commodifcation of art and corruption of artists by military-industrial corporations.

– Radha D’Souza, writer, academic, lawyer and activist, co-founder of the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC)
– Jonas Staal, artist and propaganda researcher, co-founder of the Court for Intergenerational Climate Crimes (CICC)
– Framer Framed, platform for contemporary art, visual culture, and critical theory & practice in Amsterdam