Art dealers and collectors from South Africa have voiced their anger and frustration at the sudden travel ban imposed on travelers from the country which has quashed their plans to travel to the last big art event of the year—Art Basel Miami Beach.

The travel ban came about after a new Covid-19 variant known as Omicron was detected by South African scientists and reported to the World Health Organization. In a widely criticized move, the US government alongside some Western countries issued sudden blanket travel bans on Southern African countries, although the variant has now been reported in some of these Western countries and may well have been there before South Africa isolated the new variant and informed the world of its existence.

One of the immediate negative consequences of this rushed decision is the absence of dealers from Africa, who have completed all preparations and commitments, from Art Basel Miami Beach which opens today.

Already, Liza Essers, owner and director of Goodman Gallery, based in Johannesburg and Cape Town, have had to cancel her plans to travel to Art Basel Miami Beach this week. She will miss the pop-up exhibition that the gallery organized in the Design District of new bronze sculptures by South African artist William Kentridge, in addition to the fair, ArtNews reports.

Similarly, Jonathan Garnham, owner of Cape Town’s Blank Projects, has seen his travel plans to Florida become unlikely. “These restrictions go against W.H.O. guidelines and reflect the arrogant neocolonial attitudes of the Western powers,” he said.

“This latest round of travel bans is akin to punishing South Africa for its advanced genomic sequencing and the ability to detect new variants quicker,” continued Garnham. “We are angry, we are tired.”

This setback hits harder when you consider that art fairs provide crucial settings for face-to-face encounters with clients and an opportunity to show a more diverse range of artists for galleries outside of the major global art centers.

“This is a new normal, where travel disruption remains an ongoing issue, affecting those in the Global South predominantly,” said Goodman Gallery director Jo Stella-Sawicka.

This sentiment is pronounced with this new set of travel bans of Southern African countries even when the variant is present in countries in the northern hemisphere with no such bans imposed.

“I was in New York visiting family, and read a short headline about the Omicron variant and went to sleep. I woke up the next day and all hell had broken loose,” said Joost Bosland, a partner at the South Africa gallery Stevenson.

As reported by Artnet News, two of Bosland’s Johannesburg-based business partners, David Brodie and Lerato Bereng, had already boarded their plane to head to Miami for Art Basel when Bereng received a message from a friend with a connection in government who gave an early warning about the coming U.S. ban on South African travelers.

“They did not know what the situation would be by the time the plane landed, so they had to make the decision to deboard,” said Bosland, who quickly rearranged his own plans to head to Miami in their place. “Plus, you do not really want to be that gallery with two people from a country everyone is suddenly scared of—I remember those horrible xenophobic responses some had to Asian galleries over a year and a half ago.”

Even galleries not showing in Miami still often have business to do there during the fair. Linda Pyke, director of THK Gallery, Cape Town had to scrap plans to travel to Florida with clients.

“We have just been in Europe at fairs in London, Paris, and Cologne, and realized everyone is becoming more cautious, and there are fewer international attendees,” said Pyke. “While we understand a cautious approach, we remain hopeful a reasonable balance can be found.”