The British Museum and BP (previously British Petroleum), the multinational oil and gasoline large headquartered in London, will stop their sponsorship settlement after 27 years.
The tip of the partnership, first reported by The Guardian newspaper, comes after greater than a decade of protests and inventive disruptions on the museum by activist teams together with BP or Not BP and Tradition Unstained, which noticed the settlement as a manner for BP to “artwash” its historic and ongoing contributions to international warming.
A spokesperson for the British Museum described The Guardian‘s report as “inaccurate” and acknowledged that the museum has “not confirmed now we have ended our relationship with BP”. The spokesperson added, “In occasions of diminished public funding, company sponsors like BP enable us to fulfil our mission to ship distinctive studying experiences to our guests. Now we have not ended our partnership with BP. BP is a valued long run supporter of the Museum and our present partnership runs till this yr.”
In 2016, BP introduced that it was extending its partnership with the British Museum and three different establishments from 2018 to 2023. That settlement won’t be prolonged or renewed past this yr. In accordance with data obtained by Tradition Unstained by Freedom of Info requests, the ultimate exhibition on the museum to be sponsored by BP was Hieroglyphs: Unlocking Historic Egypt, which closed on 19 February 2023. The corporate now has till the top of 2023 to make use of any remaining “supporter advantages” accrued by the partnership.
“Regardless of the museum’s lack of a transparent assertion, this essential transfer does gesture positively in the direction of chair George Osborne’s acknowledged aspirations to change into a ‘web zero’ Museum, and the numerous function for arts and cultural establishments in taking motion for local weather,” mentioned Rodney Harrison, a professor on the College of Central London’s Institute of Archaeology, in a press release supplied to Tradition Unstained, referring to a 2 November 2022 remark by the museum’s board chair throughout a speech to trustees.
Harrison added: “The archaeology, museums and heritage group will welcome the top of this sponsorship take care of an organization whose ongoing operations and lobbying on behalf of the fossil gas trade is just not solely a risk to all of our planetary futures, however whose work additionally has had, and continues to have, a unfavorable affect on cultural heritage globally.”
The British Museum is among the many final visible and performing arts establishments within the UK to finish its relationship with BP. Lately—and sometimes after sustained strain from activists—organisations together with the Tate, the Nationwide Portrait Gallery, Nationwide Galleries Scotland, the Royal Shakespeare Firm and the Royal Opera Home all opted to not renew their sponsorship agreements with BP or in any other case reduce ties with the corporate. Amongst main establishments, solely London’s Science Museum’s training academy nonetheless has a partnership with BP.
The tip of BP and the British Museum’s partnership comes after the vitality large has reported report earnings ($28bn in 2022) whereas concurrently backtracking on its dedication to scale back carbon emissions by 40% from 2019 ranges by 2030. It has as a substitute dedicated to a much less bold discount of 20% to 30%.
Local weather activists’ artistic protests urging the British Museum to finish its affiliation with BP have taken many types through the years, from a satiric proposal to drill for oil at Stonehenge final yr to a 51-hour occupation of the museum’s central courtyard in 2020 and a mythic battle between mermaids and a kraken in 2016.
