THE English Museum and British Petroleum (BP), the multinational oil and gas giant headquartered in London, have ended their sponsorship deal after 27 years.
The end of the partnership, announced for the first time by The Guardian newspaper, comes after more than a decade of protests and creative disruption at the museum by activist groups such as BP or Not BP and Culture Unstained, who saw the deal as a way for BP to ‘wash away’ its contributions historical and ongoing to global warming.
According to information obtained by Culture Unstained through Freedom of Information requests, the last exhibit at the museum to be sponsored by BP was Hieroglyphs: unlocking ancient Egypt, which closed on February 19, 2023. The company now has until the end of 2023 to use up any remaining “support benefits” accumulated through the partnership. A spokesperson for the museum did not provide any new information or statement to The Guardian and did not respond to a request for comment fromThe arts journal.
“Despite the lack of a clear statement from the museum, this important decision speaks positively to President George Osborne’s stated aspirations to become a ‘net zero’ museum and to the important role of arts and cultural institutions in climate action,” said said Rodney Harrison. , a professor at the Institute of Archeology at the University of Central London, in a statement provided to Culture Unstained, referring to a November 2, 2022 comment by the chairman of the museum’s board during a speech to the trustees.
Harrison added: “The archaeology, museums and heritage community will welcome the end of this sponsorship agreement with a company whose ongoing operations and lobbying on behalf of the fossil fuel industry are not only a threat to our entire planetary future, but whose work also has had and continues to have a negative impact on cultural heritage globally.
The British Museum is one of the latest visual and performing arts institutions in the UK to end its relationship with BP, renewing the sponsorship for five years in 2018. In recent years, and often after sustained pressure from activists, organizations such as the TateTHE National Portrait Gallery, National Galleries of Scotland, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal Opera House have all chosen not to renew their sponsorship deals with BP or to cut ties with the company. Of the major institutions, only the Academy of Education at the Science Museum in London is still has a partnership with PB.
The end of the partnership between BP and the British Museum comes after the energy giant reported record profits ($28 billion in 2022) while simultaneously reneging on its pledge to cut carbon emissions by 40% below 2019 levels by 2030. Instead, it committed to a less ambitious reduction in 20% to 30%.
Creative protests by climate activists urging the British Museum to end its affiliation with BP have taken many forms over the years, ranging from a satirical proposal to drilling for oil at Stonehenge last year at a 51 hour occupancy of the central courtyard of the museum in 2020 and a mythical battle between mermaids and a kraken in 2016.
