BRITISH MUSEUM SHUTS DOWN AS ANTI-BP PROTESTERS SCALE BUILDING

The British Museum temporarily closed today after Greenpeace activists began to climb the building in order to hang banners protesting BP’s sponsorship of a new exhibition, Adam Vaughan of The Guardian reports.

The protesters are angry over the oil giant’s support of the institution’s latest show, Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost Worlds—which features about 300 artifacts from Thonis-Heracleion and Canopus, two cities lost to the sea by the eighth century. The twenty-seven-foot-long banners that the demonstrators successfully hung from the building’s columns bore the names of cities that are threatened by rising sea levels and climate change. They also featured a modified exhibition title: “Sinking Cities.”

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A campaigner for Greenpeace, Elena Polisano, said, “The British Museum is an institution traditionally devoted to education, research and discovery, whereas BP’s focus is on building an oil-dependent culture.” Activists urged the museum—who is currently negotiating with BP about renewing its sponsorship deal—to end its partnership. Police were called to the scene, where about eighty-five protestors had gathered to support the climbers. According to the Art Newspaper, eleven people had been arrested for aggravated trespass. A spokesperson for the museum said that the institution remained closed for four hours because of “visitor safety reasons.”

The incident follows a demonstration at the museum that occurred on Tuesday, during a VIP and press launch for the show. Members of the group BP or not BP? staged an intervention, which involved a performance and a large installation. At one point, a group of performers occupied the museum’s Great Court drenched in water and chanting: “We do not accept BP’s vision of the future.”

In a promotional text displayed at the museum, BP likens itself to the archaeologists who discovered the cities featured in the exhibition. It reads: “For over fifty years BP’s underwater discoveries of oil and gas have been providing modern Egypt with energy, jobs, and economic development. Today we are pleased to help the British Museum share the discoveries from ancient Egypt’s lost worlds.” The show will run until November.