More than 80 artists, museum directors, writers, researchers and climate activists are calling on the British Museum to remove BP’s name from its lecture theatre.
After BP reported profits of £2 billon for the second quarter of this year, the group has written to the outgoing British Museum director Hartwig Fischer urging him to rename the lecture theatre.
The museum is to end its 27-year sponsorship deal with the oil and gas company this year, but BP’s name still features on the venue.
The letter’s signatories include artist Nan Goldin, who led a campaign to get the Sackler name dropped by museums across the world. The Sackler family is accused of making a profit from the US opioid crisis through its company Purdue Pharma.
“Just as cultural institutions around the world have removed the Sackler family name as evidence of the harmful ways their money was made came to light, the damning evidence on BP’s past – and present – can no longer be ignored,” the letter reads.
“Renaming the lecture theatre would send a powerful message about the future the museum wants to see, by visibly allying itself with future generations.”
It adds, “By pledging an end to funding from fossil fuel companies and by renaming the ‘BP Lecture Theatre’, you would be demonstrating the kind of climate leadership that is now so urgently needed, as the museum seeks to move into a new era.”
Cultural institutions to cut ties with BP include Tate, National Galleries Scotland, the Royal Shakespeare Company, and the National Portrait Gallery.
Museum to end 27-year sponsorship deal with BP
London’s Science Museum still has a partnership with BP. It has also been criticised for sponsorship deals with Shell, Equinor and Adani.
“BP is symbolic of the ongoing neocolonial atrocities that permeate the fossil fuel industry,” said Tori Tsui, a climate justice activist and writer, and one of the letter’s signatories.
“For the British Museum to align with BP, even symbolically, is to perpetuate and normalise the harm that has been caused. It is imperative that the British Museum stands on the right side of history in the fight for climate justice by removing BP’s logo from its venue.”
