BP and culture: time to break it off

BP Week of Action
A week of action to kick BP out of our cultural spaces
14 – 20 April 2011

In April last year, BP’s risky business in the Gulf of Mexico caused the deaths of 11 workers, triggered America’s largest ever environmental disaster, and sparked controversy about the role of one of the UK’s most iconic companies in our society. Plunged into a PR nightmare, BP has made a huge effort to reclaim its image, and reassure us all that it has learned its lessons and moved on. Nothing could be further from the truth. Last December, BP made the hugely controversial decision to start extracting high-polluting oil from the Canadian Tar Sands. It is pressing ahead with drilling in the fragile Arctic and deep-sea drilling in Russia. And, like every other year, BP is destroying the lives and livelihoods of frontline communities around the world.

Now BP can’t have its customers, investors and elite backers thinking of nasty things like that. So it’s been on a PR offensive in an effort to repair its tarnished image. Sponsorship of galleries, museums and other cultural spaces is one of the most important ways BP tries to protect its reputation and buy our acceptance. By breaking off BP’s relationship with our most prestigious cultural institutions, we strike a blow to BP’s precious brand, topple BP’s powerful position in our society, and reclaim our public spaces.

So, in the week between BP’s AGM on April 14th and the one year anniversary of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill on April 20th, we are calling for actions and creative interventions to show the true nature of BP’s damaging activities around the world, and to persuade our most prestigious galleries and cultural spaces to liberate themselves from BP’s dirty money. On the anniversary of the Gulf spill, let’s reveal the sticky black stuff behind BP’s shiny green logo, and pile on the pressure to kick BP out of our cultural spaces for good.

Keep your eyes peeled for fantastic interventions popping up at sponsored institutions throughout the week, or better yet, plan your own... then join us for a flashmob, 'The great BP-sponsored sleep-in', on Sunday 17th April, 2PM, at Tate Modern.

Groups taking part in the week of action include:

* www.artnotoil.org.uk
* www.climatecamp.org.uk/london
* www.climaterush.co.uk
* www.ienearth.org
* www.liberatetate.wordpress.com
* www.londonrisingtide.org.uk
* www.no-tar-sands.org

And finally… BP sponsors the British Museum, Tate Britain, the Science Museum, the Natural History Museum, the Royal Opera House, the National Theatre, the National Maritime Museum… and is a lead sponsor (and ‘sustainability partner’, no less!) of the 2012 Olympics.