Greenpeace activists placed a new artwork by artist Anish Kapoor on an operational Shell platform in the North Sea. Titled ‘BUTCHERED’, it depicts 1,000 litres of blood-red liquid spilling onto a 12m by 8m canvas attached to the gas platform, forming a huge crimson stain.
According to Greenpeace, BUTCHERED represents the severe damage inflicted by the fossil fuel industry on the planet and the ongoing harm it causes to people, with deadly heatwaves, droughts, and wildfires impacting communities worldwide. The artwork aims to bring this destruction directly to its source.
This is the first instance of a fine art piece being installed on an active fossil fuel platform anywhere in the world.
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A “visual scream”
The impact of climate change is becoming increasingly evident worldwide. Yet, Shell has plans for 700 new oil and gas fields, which would release approximately 10.8 billion tonnes of CO2—enough to exhaust about 5% of the remaining global carbon budget.
BUTCHERED is an original artwork by Anish Kapoor, made in response to a Greenpeace campaign and installed by Greenpeace activists. Kapoor has a history of speaking out on significant issues. In 2019, he joined other artists urging London’s National Portrait Gallery to end its association with the oil company BP.
He is the latest to join the Polluters Pay Pact, a Greenpeace initiative supported by firefighters, leaders, unions, humanitarian groups, and tens of thousands of people, urging governments to make polluters pay for climate damage.
“I wanted to make something visual, physical, visceral to reflect the butchery they are inflicting on our planet: a visual scream that gives voice to the calamitous cost of the climate crisis, often on the most marginalised communities across the globe,” says Kapoor.
“BUTCHERED is also a tribute to the heroic work done in opposition to this destruction, and to the tireless activists who choose to disrupt, disagree and disobey.”
Greenpeace says: “Fossil fuel companies like Shell should be made to pay for the damage they have knowingly caused. They won’t do this on their own – it’s time for governments to step in and hold them to account.
“Governments must introduce new taxes and fines on big polluters to help communities at home and around the world rebuild from climate disasters and invest in climate solutions.”
Elsewhere, the Natural History Museum in London has welcomed 1 million visitors in just four months to its new climate gallery, Fixing Our Broken Planet. The museum, which attracted more than 6.3 million guests in 2024, stated that the popularity of the gallery reflects public demand for exploring spaces that offer practical, evidence-based solutions to the current planetary emergency.
