***SPLASHMOB!***
A mass public underwater-themed finvasion
Tell the British Museum to #DropBP
Sunday 25th September 2016
Put the date in your diary and sign up for more info by emailing info@bp-or-not-bp.org.
Click here for the Facebook event.
Pressure has been mounting against fossil fuel sponsorship of the arts for years. Now it’s time to scale things up.
Save the date, and get ready to join merfolk, fish and other underwater creatures to tell the British Museum to #DropBP.
We’re not doing this just for the halibut. We need to knock BP off their perch.
This week, a troupe of singing merfolk invaded the British Museum to celebrate its climate-trashing sponsor BP. Rising sea-levels and new sunken cities might be great news for merfolk but they’re disastrous for the rest of us.
BP are driving us towards climate breakdown, and creating the sunken cities of the future. High profile arts sponsorship deals are only about legitimising their destructive practices, and the British Museum has fallen for it hook, line and sinker.
We’ve already won with Tate and Edinburgh International Festival. That wasn’t a fluke. BP are floundering.
It’s time for the British Museum to #DropBP.
BP AND SUNKEN CITIES
BP are sponsoring an exhibition of a sunken city from Egypt’s past. They are also creating the sunken cities of our future.
Earlier this year, we lost five of the Solomon Islands to rising sea levels. Over the decades to come, densely populated, iconic cities around the world from Alexandria to London could also become sunken cities.
New research suggests that we could see a 9 metre sea-level rise by the end of this century. This would be a devastating outcome for millions of people.
Rising seas are driven by climate change. To have any chance of protecting these cities, we need to keep at least 80 per cent of fossil fuels in the ground.
But BP are doing everything they can to continue extracting and burning fossil fuels. They even collaborate with today’s violently oppressive Egyptian government.
The British Museum should not accept money from a company which threatens to create the sunken cities of the future. The museum’s 5-year contract with BP expires this year, and must not be renewed.
There’s never been a better time to tell British Museum to #DropBP.
WHY SHOULDN’T BP SPONSOR THE ARTS?
Oil companies like BP are lobbying hard to prevent meaningful climate action, while burning reserves which will put us into an unprecedented climate emergency.
Sponsoring public and cultural institutions like the British Museum help BP cover up these practices, by providing them with a social licence to operate.
With their logo proudly displayed by respected partners, they present themselves as being a caring, responsible company, while committing some of the world’s worst human rights abuses and causing runaway climate change.
WHO WE ARE
We are a theatrical protest group called BP or not BP?
We formed in 2012 to oppose BP’s sponsorship of the Royal Shakespeare Company with a series of Shakespeare-themed stage invasions.
We now carry out pop-up performances in a range of fossil fuel sponsored spaces, including the British Museum.
http://www.bp-or-not-bp.org
@ReclaimOurBard
BP or not BP? 