British Museum: Drop BP!

This collection documents a theatrical direct action, on the first day of Summer of 2024, aimed at the British Museum and its partnership with oil giant BP, and its complicity in the genocide in Gaza. Planned and carried out by a coalition of campaign groups (Energy Emabargo for Palestine, BP or Not BP, and Parents for Palestine), the action centred around reproducing the British Museum’s Phobos mosaic, assembling it inside the museum, with the mosaic tiles and equipment cleverly smuggled in. It was the latest in a series of actions against the museum and its ties to BP.

The campaigners engaged with museum visitors and invited them to participate in the laying of the mosaic. Hundreds of flyers were handed out and dozens of visitors joined in throughout the day. The museum shut its doors, barring entrance and trapping hundreds of ticket holders outside. Eventually they reopened, perhaps calculating the loss of revenue they would incur. Ultimately the action was a dance with the museum’s management, who wanted the campaigners arrested: given a range of bad options, which one would be the least bad in terms of optics for them? They finally had no choice but to let the campaigners (at least partially) finish the mosaic after official closing time, having called the Met who observed as the piece was carried out under their surveillance.