Royal Academy Apologise to Jess DeWahls

[PandorasMailbox]

Some good news

"One thing is clear to us now – we should have handled this better. We have apologised to Jess deWahls for the way we have treated her and do so again publicly now. We had no right to judge her views on our social media. This betrayed our most important core value – the protection of free speech"

royal-academy-production-asset.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/b5758780-33b8-47a9-9dea-0b3312981235/Royal%20Academy%20statement%2023.06.21.pdf

The issue of the curious absence on Insta was raised at 12pm on twitter.

RA did their Insta post at approx 2pm.

Seems it might have been a false apology as Comms Manager on Twitter implied it was " performative"
So an apology and then " I fooled you nah, nah,nah....
mobile.twitter.com/LottieHistory/status/1407665112119451650

Jere's the screenshot og the comms manager's tweet. I'm sure forgetting to do the Insta post was jiat a technical snafu at the comms dept though.

jiat a technical snafu at the comms dept though.

As they say up here 'Aye Right!'

If I were inclined to guess, which I am, they didn't even make the connection, oh, gee, if we call this person out for transphobia what's the bigger picture?

Actually, it would be interesting to know whether they followed some complaints process they have, and if so how that was developed, and whether anyone considered how it would relate to questions around free speech, the purpose of art, etc.

That Adam Koszary is so unprofessional. Pretty misogynistic judging by what I can see online, and not nearly as good at jis job as he thinks he is.

Kind of landed himself in the cacky, if there is cacky to land in.

After that, and the replies he 'liked' on twitter, it's a bit hard to give the comms dept the benefit of the doubt about the curious absence of a statement on Instagram until 2pm.

Excellent news!

At the time of posting, the RA haven't put it on their FB account either.

Just looked at that tweet, what a bunch of cowards they are. Incredibly unprofessional

The RA are a bunch of cowards. Like PPs have mentioned, you had to look really bloody hard to find the apology.

Too little, too late. Glad to see other artists pulling out of the RA because of this debacle.

Surely this is on the wrong thread as it is about women's right to say they dont believe people can change sex.

And the other threads on this are on the FWR board.

Anyone would think mumsnet is trying to make feminist talk on mumsnet less effectively by splitting things up irrationally.

If anyone is interested there is a much longer thread on the other board.

To be honest, I've not quite got the hang of the thread segregation.

Sorry PandorasMailbox - I had come from another thread about how well mumsnet were handling the division (that only they understand).

So in no way am I criticising you.

It was more to say that for some reason mumsnet had moved the other threads about this to the "other" board.

Apologies for not making that clear.

By the way I think it is brilliant news!

I think it helped that the Museum Association published something yesterday that was quite critical of the RA.

@PandorasMailbox

The RA are a bunch of cowards. Like PPs have mentioned, you had to look really bloody hard to find the apology.

Too little, too late. Glad to see other artists pulling out of the RA because of this debacle.

Where have you seen that other artists pulled out of RA because of this? I looked online but haven't found this story.

This brave woman.

I have just written to the @royalacademy to ask them to reimburse my £70 entry fee for this years RA Summer Show, as I feel they will be unfairly judging my work on my politics and not on its merits. Please RT.

#istandwithjessdewahls
#rasummershow t.co/EC0KzC7HxJ

twitter.com/rachelara/status/1406600064399822849?s=19

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

I've just learnt from twitter that this statementhasn'tbeen made on Instagram.

Where did the RA make their original statement they weren't stocking Jess's work any more? Insta.

Where are the embroidery 'artists' who really need to see this and be slapped down? Insta.

Where is Jess de Wahls receiving the most abuse? Insta

Where would the RA receive the most pushback for making this statement? Insta.

But they've not made this statement there!

I saw it earlier on there this afternoon not sure when exactly

The comments on Instagram are pretty harsh in parts

I know people go for it on there, but still

It seems to have got put up there at approximately 2pm, according to timestamps.

Bit of a wait, really.

I have ordered direct from JdW not through the RA tho...