Finish BP’s British Museum Greenwash – On Sunday twentieth December 2015 I went with ‘actor-vists’ from ‘BP or Not BP?’ to {photograph} the play they had been staging uninvited within the British Museum’s Nice Courtroom depicting ‘BP executives’ giving a farewell get together to departing Museum director ‘Neil MacGregor’.
Local weather activists had been calling on the British Museum and different artwork establishments to cease accepting sponsorship from BP and different corporations whose actions are accelerating international warming. This protest got here only a few days after the Paris local weather talks through which some had been arrested for protesting contained in the Louvre over its sponsorship by main oil corporations Complete and Eni.
It was part of an entire collection of protests within the UK which ultimately led the Tate, the Nationwide Portrait Gallery, Nationwide Galleries Scotland, the Royal Shakespeare Firm and the Royal Opera Home all to finish sponsorship by BP. Their protests continued later within the British Museum, which in June this 12 months (2023) lastly seems to have determined to finish its agreements with BP after 27 years. The one main cultural establishment nonetheless partnering with BP is now the Science Museum’s training academy.
BP’s contribution to the Museum’s finances was comparatively small, a fraction of a %, however on my first go to for some years round ten years in the past I used to be stunned and moderately shocked by the engraved message on the wall of the rotunda within the Nice Courtroom and the numerous occasions the BP brand appeared on show texts. It additionally featured prominently on the publicity for the museum’s main exhibitions, together with Vikings, Ming, Indigenous Australia: Enduring Civilisation, the Mexican Day of the Useless and Sunken Cities, the final two maybe notably unlucky as BP has been given the most important company felony nice in historical past of $18.7 billion for the underwater Deepwater Horizon oil spill which brought on enormous air pollution of the ocean across the coast of Mexico.
I’d bought to know the British Museum fairly effectively within the Seventies when my spouse labored for a few years within the British Library which was then primarily based there, writing entries for {the catalogue} and serving readers on the desk there. What had been moderately darkish lobbies across the central corridor had been reworked into a big open space, but in addition the Museum had develop into very a lot an area selling the “World’s Greatest CORPORATE CRIMINAL.’ The open house did nevertheless in December 2015 present an ideal theatre for ‘BP or Not BP?’
Round 20 performers had made their approach into the museum carrying props and banners in baggage, beneath coats and in pockets, and grouped within the Nice Courtroom in entrance of the Rotunda, near the place the message of due to BP is engraved within the wall. I believe there was not a substantial amount of safety though the efficiency had been fairly broadly marketed most likely as a result of many Museum employees are additionally against or embarrassed by BP sponsorship.
The play then started with the forged, dressed as BP executives, having a celebration and singing a music about departing director Neil MacGregor giving BP “low cost branding and a social license to function by means of all of the oil spills” to the tune of Robbie Williams’s ‘Angels’, then leaving the stage to a few ‘BP executives’ who had been shortly joined by the actor enjoying Neil MacGregor, who they thanked effusively for his assist, itemizing and commenting about a few of their actions together with the varied exhibitions.
‘MacGregor”s reply to their thanks included varied revealing quotes from e-mails he had written to BP employees which had been revealed by Freedom Of Info requests, and he was plied with oily champagne and a cake representing the world till he collapsed drunk. The BP executives then mentioned how they might “befriend and bribe” new director, Hartwig Fischer, with “much more lavish dinner events! … Enterprise conferences! … Opening nights! … VIP Previews! … Exhibitions! … Screenings! … Drinks!” earlier than ending with a toast and singing collectively to the tune of Auld Lang Syne a music whose refrain was (with some slight variations):
For all of the OIL and lies, my dears,
For all of the OIL and lies,
We gave a tiny sum of money
In the meantime the planet fries.
The group had been approached by a Museum safety officer as they started the efficiency and had assured him it might be pretty quick and they’d then go away and I believe the museum determined to not name the police. Because the play ended they cleaned up the ground and marched out singing, pausing briefly within the lobby after which giving a second efficiency on the portico outdoors earlier than we went to a close-by pub the place I made a hasty edit and handed over footage to them.
You’ll be able to nonetheless see a video in regards to the efficiency on the on the BP or NOT BP? web page, together with a number of of my footage. I had taken a lot of footage and people on My London Diary are largely the out-takes from the big set for the performers.
Extra footage at Finish BP’s British Museum Greenwash.
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Tags: activists actor-vists, artwork for individuals, BP, BP or Not BP?, BP sponsorship, British Museum, company felony, exhibitions, Farewell Neil Macgregor, international warming, Nice Courtroom, greenwash, greenwashing, Hartwig Fischer, lavish dinner events, London, new director, Opening nights, individuals not revenue, peter Marshall, play, protest, VIP Previews
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