PUBLISHED September 6, 2023

Borås Cultural Center chooses to cancel the exhibition of artist Sadaf Ahmadi for security reasons, citing the Quran burnings and the potential for people to be offended. Now, GP’s cultural chief and former Borås resident, Johan Hilton, reacts.

“I can understand feeling fear, but it is all the more important to show backbone in such a matter,” he says.

Artist Sadaf Ahmadi fled Iran to escape the regime’s oppression. Her exhibition has been shown in France during the spring, and now it was supposed to be the turn of Borås Cultural Center. However, after initially accepting the exhibition this spring, the Cultural Center now chooses to cancel.

A decision that GP’s cultural chief, Johan Hilton, does not understand at all.

“I think one is bending to a specter that doesn’t even exist, bending to imagined threats rather than concrete threats,” he says.

Listen to Johan Hilton about the canceled art exhibition in the clip.