The relationship between oil and gas company BP and the British Museum is hypocritical and dangerous
Major exhibitions at top museums take years to plan, and draw upon the significant experience of curators. The British Museum’s new Sunken Cities exhibition is no exception – excavating statues from deep underwater, shipping them to the UK and curating their display is no mean feat. But in one simple move – adding a BP logo – the British Museum has undermined the hard work of the team behind the exhibition.
The blatant irony of allowing BP – a large oil company – to sponsor an exhibition called ‘Sunken Cities’ was somehow overlooked. In recent decades, BP has relentlessly lobbied against key climate legislation that would have played a part in curbing the rising sea levels we are now seeing. And, despite the consensus among climate scientists that we must leave around 80 per cent of known fossil fuel reserves in the ground, BP is out exploring for new sources of oil and gas. This is either one of the most audacious pieces of marketing ever undertaken by BP or it will turn out to be another public relations disaster.
But what makes BP’s sponsorship of this exhibition particularly insensitive is the way the company is using the deal to promote its own interests in Egypt. On the introductory board for the exhibition, BP shamelessly refers to itself as ‘fellow explorers of the Nile Delta’ who ‘feel a strong affinity with the marine archaeologists’. At the exhibition’s VIP launch, a member of BP staff gave a similar speech, which was met by cringes from the crowd. But the two couldn’t be more different – the archaeologists are uncovering the past in order to further our understanding, while BP extracts the residue of the past in order to burn it and put the future at risk.
In BP’s own press release for the exhibition, its true motivations are laid bare. The Egyptian ambassador to the UK tellingly thanks BP ‘for working with us in utilising our resources to develop our economy’. When he says ‘Egypt is always searching for partners to help in exploring its heritage and treasures which are still hidden under its lands, and waters’, we can probably assume he’s not just talking about ancient artefacts.
But the truth is that many people in Egypt actively object to this ‘partnership’ with BP. In 2011-12, the people of Idku in the Nile Delta successfully resisted BP’s expansion plans for a development that would include new pipelines and platforms. But since Abdel Fattah El-Sisi took over power in Egypt and introduced a repressive anti-protest law, many forms of opposition have been quashed and, unsurprisingly, BP’s plans have been now been pushed through.
Just last year, BP signed a new $12 billion deal with the Egyptian government – a rehash of its deal with the ousted dictator, Hosni Mubarak. In the four months before the deal was signed, 340 people were forcibly disappeared in the country, adding to an ever-growing number of disappearances, detentions and rights violations. But when it comes to repressive rulers, BP is happy to turn a blind eye. And when BP’s ties to repression are revealed, the British Museum has been too willing to protect its sponsor, rather than promote the freedoms that have been eroded.
The Museums Association in the UK recently launched its new ‘Code of Ethics for Museums’. One of its guidelines states that museums should ‘seek support from organisations whose ethical values are consistent with those of the museum’. The inconsistency should be clear to the British Museum by now. But despite this mismatch, some commentators in the press have defended BP’s sponsorship of the museum with a condition: that the company does not interfere in the museum’s ‘artistic and intellectual judgments’.
Just weeks ago, Art Not Oil launched a damning report showing how BP had done just that. Drawing upon multiple documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, it identified where BP had interfered in curatorial decision-making, security procedures and exploited opportunities to meet with policymakers of strategic interest to the company. But at its AGM just a month ago, BP’s CEO Bob Dudley bragged that money is given with ‘no strings attached’.
Last year, the British Museum hosted a ‘Days of the Dead’ festival and, despite having an existing five-year sponsorship deal in place, BP stumped up additional cash to get its logo on the event. It turns out that BP enjoyed a specially arranged VIP reception with members of the Mexican government just weeks before it was due to bid on new drilling licenses in Mexico. One of the principles in the British Museum’s own ‘Policy on Sustainable Development’ is that it will ‘ensure that the risk of any potential harmful effects through any of its actions are minimised’. If, with its offer of extra cash, BP leant on the museum to make the event happen, then the museum will have knowingly increased the likelihood of a risky drilling deal being struck.
Back in 2011, BP launched that five-year sponsorship deal with four major cultural institutions: Tate, the Royal Opera House and the National Portrait Gallery, alongside the British Museum. In the aftermath of its ‘Deepwater Horizon’ BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, it was to be a cheap way for the company to clean up its image, but now we know that the deal has also been a cheap tool for BP to shore up its future business plans as well. It was recently announced that after 26 years, Tate’s deal with BP would come to an end in 2017. But until the others drop BP, they will be backing a reckless company whose drilling fuels the rising sea levels that are creating the sunken cities of the not-so-distant future.
You can read the full report here or by visiting www.artnotoil.org.uk.
Photo Credit: Kristian Buus