Please reach us at flowstrike@proton.me if you cannot find an answer to your question.
The goal of the Flow Strike campaign is to have Flow Festival to create a sustainable ethical guideline for its operations. This should result in, for example, ending all partnerships between Flow Festival and companies that are affiliated with the state of Israel or Israeli companies. Our broader aim is to get Flow Festival's new owner, KKR, to divest from Israeli companies or companies that do business with the state of Israel.
The Flow Strike campaign uses the collective power of artists to push for a more ethical direction of the festival industry, both in Finland and internationally. We hope to set an example for other festivals owned by KKR which, through its recent announcement of the upcoming acquisition of Superstruct Entertainment, KKR will own about 80 significant festivals in Europe and Australia. We want to decolonise the festival industry here and everywhere.
Fundamentally, the Flow Strike campaign is organised because we want to support the realisation of Palestinians’ human rights, end Israel's settler colonial apartheid regime’s illegal occupation of Palestine, and promote the creation of ethically sustainable and decolonised festivals everywhere. The Flow Strike campaign supports calls for a permanent ceasefire and calls for an end to the economic support of Israel internationally.
Flow Strike welcomes all artists who believe in decolonising Flow Festival and the impact this process can make in the festival industry internationally. All artists can participate in the Flow Strike campaign, regardless of whether they are booked to perform in Flow Festival 2024 or not. Artists, who are not collaborating with this year’s Flow, participate in the campaign by refusing to work with Flow Festival until the campaign’s goals are reached.
If you have been booked to perform at the 2024 Flow Festival, you can join the Flow Strike campaign either by refusing to perform or by expressing your support for the campaign in any way you choose during your performance. It is really important that the artists who are partaking in the Flow Strike this year and are performing in Flow Festival make sure that the 90 000 visitors to the festival know the campaign has started and what are its goals.
There are two ways for artists to participate in the Flow Strike campaign:
Yes. Festivals are entirely dependent on the work of artists, making a campaign that utilises also the strategy of a labour strike against Flow Festival one of the most effective ways to make an impact.
A similar artists' strike, Kiasma_strike, was carried out in 2022–2023, and it successfully achieved its goals. One of its most significant achievements was that the museums of the Finnish National Gallery (Ateneum, Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma, and Sinebrychoff Art Museum) will adhere to ethical guidelines in their future fundraising. These ethical guidelines were created as the result of the strike.
Kiasma_strike succeeded because the artists used their collective power to demonstrate a shared desire for a more ethical operating environment. The Flow Strike campaign aims to achieve the same within the festival industry. As Flow Festival is one of the biggest events in Finland, we have decided that artists can join the Flow Strike also by using their performance in Flow as a platform to spread the campaign's message.
KKR is one of the largest investment firms in the world, with various types and sizes of investments in companies around the globe. According to KKR's website, it “Supports high-growth technology companies with proven business models within the software, cybersecurity, FinTech, Internet, data and information sectors in North America, Europe and Israel.” For example, Artlist and Guesty are Israeli technology companies in which KKR holds a majority stake.
Not all of KKR's investments are publicly disclosed, as KKR invests through numerous different funds. However, some transactions are reported in the media. At the beginning of 2024, KKR purchased the Israeli company UserWay for nearly 100 million euros. In 2021, KKR and Global Technical Realty (GTR) announced the construction of an underground data centre in Tel Aviv. KKR established GTR with a one billion euro investment in 2020. In 2019, KKR invested in the Israeli company Clicktale. Interest in the Israeli technology sector has been long-term; in 2015, KKR invested in the Israeli company Optimal+.
In the spirit of the Palestinian civil movement, Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS), the Flow Strike campaign acknowledges that Israel maintains settler colonialism, apartheid governance, and illegal occupation of Palestinians due to international support. Companies and institutions around the world contribute to Israel's oppression of Palestinians by trading with or investing in Israeli companies. Almost all Israeli companies are involved in some way in Israel's illegal occupation and apartheid system.
The bottom line is that as one of the world's largest investment firms, KKR has not announced its intention to divest from Israeli companies or companies that do business with the state of Israel. For example, Norway's largest pension fund, KLP, divested its 728 million kronor stake in Caterpillar at the end of June. In its statement, KLP noted that “KLP and KLP funds have decided to exclude Caterpillar from their investment portfolios due to the risk that the US company may be contributing to human rights abuses and violation of international law in the West Bank and Gaza.” Thus, it is not unusual for internationally operating investment funds to divest from companies potentially involved in human rights violations and breaches of international law.
In Europe, KKR is a major shareholder in the German media and technology company Axel Springer. Additionally, KKR representatives sit on Axel Springer's supervisory board. Axel Springer's mission has been to support the state of Israel since its founding, recently including support for illegal settlements – Axel Springer, for example, markets Israel's illegal settlements in the West Bank on its Yad2 classified ads website.
Moreover, KKR has faced significant criticism in recent years for investing substantial amounts in the energy and fossil fuels industries, such as oil and gas companies in the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Europe, and the Middle East. KKR is also known to fund the development of surveillance technology in China.
Flow Festival accepts partnerships with companies that benefit from and are in support of Israel’s apartheid regime. Flow Festival's main partner, Heineken, owns 40% of the Israeli company Tempo Beverages, which is on the Canadian BDS list of companies to boycott. Tempo Beverages has the exclusive right to sell beverages in the Palestinian Authority areas. Notably, in 2023, Flow Festival ended its partnership with Heineken because Heineken had not withdrawn from the Russian market as promised. However, the partnership has since been resumed.
YouTube is one of Flow Festival's partners. YouTube is owned by Google, which made billion-dollar deals with the state of Israel this spring. Together with Microsoft, Google collaborates on Project Nimbus, through which they provide cloud services for the Israeli military and state. The No Tech For Apartheid campaign has collected information and statements on the subject, including from Google's employees.
BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) is a Palestinian-led nonviolent and anti-racist movement advocating for freedom, justice, and equality. Its goal is to cut off economic support to Israel's apartheid government. BDS aims to achieve international condemnation of Israel's settler colonialism and oppression of Palestinians, thereby severing economic, cultural, and academic ties with Israel.
The Flow Strike campaign is not part of BDS but is inspired by its goals and principles.