Are fossil fuel donations to the arts justified in the midst of a climate crisis?

Source: Extinction Rebellion

[Redacted] asks whether it is right for the arts to accept sponsorship from environmentally-damaging industries.

In recent years, the arts sector has been faced with a somewhat difficult dilemma. Some would argue that the cultural establishment has a societal responsibility to improve access to exhibitions and performances and make them available to a much wider audience than ever before. Yet the arts sector, galleries and museums especially, have increasingly been challenged by an inability to fund wider accessibility. Prices to exhibitions have increased dramatically. The Tutankhamun (Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh) exhibition at the Saatchi Gallery, opening its doors to the public on 2nd November, charges an eye-watering £28.50 for an adult ticket during peak times. Similarly, the British Museum’s spectacular exhibition on Troy (Troy: Myth and Reality) which opened on 21st November, costs £20 for an adult ticket even on a weekday. 

Who can afford these prices? Not the average student. Luckily, galleries and theatre performances are often subsidised, decreasing the average ticket-price for young adults and students. But how can cash-strapped arts organisations afford to do this? The answer lies in large donations from multi-million-pound companies, or highly influential families. Donations enable the subsidisation of tickets, often in return for a company’s logo, or family names, being emblazoned across advertising for the show. For example, the Troy exhibition is advertised as “The BP exhibition, Troy: Myth and Reality”. How ethical is this funding? Surely such massive donations instead mean artists and curators, perhaps unwillingly, are associated with these donors? More importantly, how can donations from big corporations which have a negative impact upon the environment be justified in the midst of a climate crisis? This ongoing debate surrounding the arts and funding, as well as the sector’s troubled relationship with the environment, raises some profound questions.

Sponsorship and support from morally questionable organisations is increasingly coming under attack. The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) has traditionally accepted donations from BP, helping to subsidise a number of tickets for performances. BP is a well-known multinational oil and gas corporation, the seventh largest company in the world in terms of revenue production. It has sponsored many museums and arts projects in the UK for a number of years, including The National Portrait Gallery, The British Museum, and the Royal Opera House. It would seem that BP, in an attempt to clean up its bad environmental image, has decided to use the cultural sector to its advantage. It has been a prominent partner for the RSC, offering discounted tickets to youngsters, with 16-25-year-olds having the opportunity to get £5 tickets to many performances. In May 2019, the oil giant paid over £1 million to the Aberdeen Art Gallery, contributing to a copper roof-top extension which will be named the ‘BP Galleries’ when the gallery opens later this year. 

It’s not just the oil companies who are trying to remedy their image through cultural influence; big pharma is in on the ruse too. Perhaps the most famous example is the Sackler family, who have been heavily linked to the opioid crisis through their family-owned company Purdue Pharma LP, which produces the prescription painkiller OxyContin. The Sackler family can be linked to funding across the UK in healthcare, education and the arts, claiming to have donated more than £60 million since 2010. 

But there has been backlash. The newly opened V&A in Dundee is being urged to return a donation from the Sackler family, just as the National Portrait Gallery (NPG) gave up a million-pound donation earlier this year, as a result of the business’ alleged contribution to the American opioid crisis. In February 2019, hundreds of protestors occupied the British Museum, objecting to its relationship with BP. Actor Mark Rylance (of Wolf Hall and theatre fame) has resigned from his position as an associate artist with the RSC. Rylance stated in June 2019 that too much money had been taken from BP, and the RSC’s association with BP was hiding the “destructive reality of its activities”. Although serving as a blow to the RSC, Rylance’s words echo the growing feeling for the need for an intervention and genuine action. 

It is not just famous names who are taking up the fight. Ella Mann, a gap-year student who will attend Leeds University next year, penned a letter that contributed to the RSC cutting its ties with BP: the long-held sponsorship deal will finish at the end of this year. Mann, capturing the mood of the current zeitgeist, wanted to address the extremely hypocritical relationships between the arts and big corporations. Until now, such associations have been largely ignored, but not anymore. 

Protest at the NPG is also not a new phenomenon. Recently, Extinction Rebellion protesters staged a demonstration at the NPG in late-October. Several semi-naked activists entered the Ondaatje Wing of the gallery, lay down and covered themselves in fake oil, in a protest against the gallery accepting donations from BP. In 2003, there were protests against BP for its sponsorship of the Portrait Award; BP has supported the annual award for over thirty years. This has not been without controversy — artists such as Anthony Gormley, Anish Kapoor and Sarah Lucas have all previously criticised the NPG for its ties with BP, once again highlighting how contentious an issue this funding within the arts sector is. 

How can we accept such corporations’ sponsorship of the arts, when the industry has an enormous contribution to environmental damage? The arts sector argues that private sponsorship is needed to be able to engage with individuals across society and insists that their carbon footprint is being improved. But it is a half-hearted explanation that leaves much to be desired. Fundamentally, the arts sector is one that denotes freedom of expression, crucial to our identity — yet it is quickly becoming synonymous with large-scale corporations who are looking to clean up their tarnished images. The association is hypocritical, unethical, and needs to be stopped.