Victory at the British Museum!

Back in June, we got the news: The British Museum’s sponsorship deal with BP is – finally – coming to an end!

Despite the museum’s attempts to muddy the water and refuse to confirm the end of the deal, Freedom of Information requests from our friends at Culture Unstained make it clear that the BP deal has come to an end, and is not being renewed.

*Our first mass performance in the British Museum, targeting a BP-sponsored Shakespeare exhibition, November 18, 2012. Photo by David Hoffman.*

We had further confirmation last month, as the next major British Museum exhibition was announced – with not a BP logo in sight.

This is the culmination of more than ten years of work by too many people to list here: all the groups in the Art Not Oil coalition, the many frontline activists affected by BP’s operations who spoke out against the sponsorship, the British Museum staff – and outspoken ex-trustee Ahdaf Souief – who took a stand. Plus of course nearly 50 rebel performances from ourselves inside the museum 🙂 One of our members wrote this piece for Huck looking back at how this historic victory was achieved.

*We smuggle a longship into the British Museum to give BP a Viking funeral at a BP-sponsored Vikings exhibition, June 2014. Photo by Hugh Warwick*

The end of the British Museum’s BP deal means that nearly every art and cultural space in the UK is now free of fossil fuel sponsorship. Thanks to the incredible work of so many activists, artists, performers, frontline representatives and culture workers, the oil industry has been kicked out of almost all of the UK cultural sector in the last ten years. There’s really only the London Science Museum and the Aberdeen Art Gallery with active fossil fuel partnerships at this point.

We team up with London Mexico Solidarity to create a guerrilla performance at a Day of the Dead event at the British Museum, sponsored by BP and the Mexican government, November 2015. Photo by Diana More.

At this crucial moment in history, as the fossil fuel industry struggles to maintain its credibility in the face of an increasingly hostile public, our movement has removed one of its key sources of power and influence. We’ve stripped away the oil industry’s ability to use UK arts and culture as a platform to artwash its brand and gain access to important decision-makers and elites. At the same time, we’ve helped to free arts organisations to speak out more boldly on the climate crisis and to challenge the companies driving it – see for example outgoing Tate Director Frances Morris praising the anti-BP work of Liberate Tate at a conference earlier this year (from 22 minutes in).

*We release a kraken in the British Museum, at the BP-sponsored Sunken Cities exhibition, September 2016. Photo by Kristian Buus.*

Of course, the work is not yet done. This month, we joined 80 other artists, museum directors, cultural figures and campaign groups in calling on the British Museum to rename its BP Lecture Theatre and commit to never again partnering with a fossil fuel company. The museum is still failing to address its colonial legacy and return stolen artefacts. And did we mention the Science Museum…?!

*The crowd listens to Ariana Davis and Ahilapalapa Rands from the Interislands Collective, during our first Stolen Goods Tour at the British Museum in December 2018. Photo by Diana More*.

But it’s important to pause, recognise and celebrate these hard-fought victories when they come. So to everyone who’s been part of this campaign, in any way: thank you. Your actions made a difference. The oil industry is now less powerful because of you. And in the next few years, we’re going to need every advantage we can get.

See you for the next victory,

BP or not BP? x

BP or not BP?

That is the question