200-strong choir performs anti-BP concert in the British Museum
The Great Court of the British Museum was taken over by 200 singers, including many Quakers, this weekend, protesting the institution's acceptance of £50 million from oil giant BP.
On Saturday, 30 November, the Climate Choir Movement rehearsed at Friends House, Quaker central offices in Euston, before forming a flashmob in the museum.
The singers performed Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss, complete with new anti-BP words at the entrance of the Great Court, the largest covered public square in Europe.
Masked actors, representing museum director Nicholas Cullinan, BP boss Murray Auchincloss and chair of museum trustees George Osborne, paraded with the choir.
Meanwhile a massive banner declaring 'Drop BP' was suspended above the Great Court.
A second banner declared 'Human Culture from the Beginning to the End: The British Museum with British Petroleum'.
Last year the British Museum announced it would no longer host BP branded exhibitions, but it accepted £50m from the oil giant toward its 10-year development plan.
BP has scaled back climate targets while making profits of billions of dollars. It has also abandoned its goal to cut oil output by 2030.
The controversial decision to take BP's money has added to the ongoing debate about ethical fundraising and sponsorship in the culture sector.
Climate Choir co-founder, Bristol Quaker Jo Flanagan, said: “This is a carbon copy - pun intended - of what the tobacco industry did when they knew their products caused cancers, and then used cultural sponsorship to deflect attention."
Climate Choir Movement musical director Kai Honey said: “The British Museum showcases objects from cultures and countries across the world.
“By slashing their renewable energy division, BP is contributing to the collapse of the world's stable climate, out of which human cultures arose."
More than 700 people have joined the Climate Choir Movement since it was launched in Bristol in 2022. It now has 16 choirs across the UK and one in Zimbabwe.
Quakers are led by their faith to draw attention to how rising emissions have pushed the world to the edge of irreversible damage.