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Greater than 80 artists and cultural figures have referred to as on Hartwig Fischer, the outgoing director of the British Museum in London, to rename the Museum’s BP Lecture Theatre after the establishment introduced an finish to its long-term sponsorship take care of the fossil gas large.
Fischer obtained an open letter this morning, with signatories together with the photographer and activist Nan Goldin, who spearheaded the PAIN marketing campaign in opposition to the Sackler household; the main local weather scientist Invoice McGuire; and the director of London’s Brunel Museum, Katherine McAlpine.
The letter, which has been shared with The Artwork Newspaper, argues that the persevering with presence of BP on the museum “lends [the oil company] an undeserved and harmful social legitimacy and affect.”
On 1 August, BP revealed recorded earnings of greater than $2.6bn within the second monetary quarter of 2023, whereas saying a $1.5bn buyback for shareholders. The corporate is constant to put money into new fossil gas extraction.
In June 2023, the top of the British Museum’s sponsorship offers with BP was confirmed by way of paperwork accessed by way of a Freedom of Info request and first revealed by The Guardian newspaper. The museum didn’t rule out taking sponsorship cash from BP or different fossil gas producers sooner or later.
The open letter reads: “Over the 27 years that BP was a sponsor of the British Museum, it lobbied in opposition to essential local weather laws, funded business teams that unfold disinformation, and profited from shut ties to repressive rulers in international locations corresponding to Russia and Egypt. The British Museum continued to associate with BP whilst its oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico, whereas its fuel flaring prompted poisonous air pollution for communities in Iraq.”
BP has beforehand admitted that its complete carbon emissions are set to extend till at the very least 2030, whereas saying plans for additional deepwater drilling operations in the Gulf of Mexico.
Underneath Fischer’s course, the British Museum has revealed the so-called “masterplan” which pledges to make the establishment “a internet zero carbon museum—now not a vacation spot for local weather protest however as an alternative an instance of local weather resolution”.
July 2023 was the world’s hottest month on file, with wildfires breaking out in international locations together with Greece, Italy and the US. Scientists have attributed the heatwaves to human-made world heating.
In March 2022, the British Museum joined a number of different cultural establishments in eradicating the Sackler household title from galleries and rooms it has supported. In doing so, the museum has distanced itself from the household accused of making the most of the US opioids disaster by way of their possession of the pharmaceutical firm Purdue Pharma.
On the time of writing, the British Museum has declined to offer an announcement on the BP Lecture Theatre letter, following a request from The Artwork Newspaper.
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