Art Not Oil - previous site "archive" - to 06th Oct 2013
***************On Jan 21st 2010, diaries were delivered to all Serpentine employees, on which date we had still received no reply from the Serpentine, whose 2008 and 2009 Pavilions were sponsored by NetJets, the largest business jet company in Europe.NetJets boss Mark Booth is on the board of the Serpentine Gallery, as is Colin Tweedy, boss of Arts & Business. From the Gallery's website: 'NetJets Europe is the title sponsor for the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion 2009. Mark Booth, Executive Chairman, said: "Sejima and Nishizawa’s design for the Serpentine Pavilion 2009 is truly breathtaking. The incredible light and openness of the concept will make for a stunning structure, which will raise the bar even higher for the much-anticipated Pavilion. Design is an area that we’re passionate about at NetJets: we’re firmly focussed on how we can bring world-class design to our customers’ flight experience; just as the Serpentine Pavilion brings world class architecture to London. We’re delighted to be a partner in this project and are looking forward to seeing the finished Pavilion."Plane Stupid's take on business jets: http://www.planestupid.com/video/biggin1
-------------------------------This letter was sent to the Board of the Almeida Theatre on 21.1.10<!- /* Font Definitions *@font-fac {font-family:"Times New Roman" panose-1:0 2 2 6 3 5 4 5 2 3 mso-font-charset:0 mso-generic-font-family:auto mso-font-pitch:variable mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;@font-fac {font-family:"Gill Sans" panose-1:0 2 11 5 2 2 1 4 2 2 mso-font-charset:0 mso-generic-font-family:auto mso-font-pitch:variable mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0;@font-fac {font-family:"American Typewriter" panose-1:0 2 9 6 4 2 0 4 2 3 mso-font-charset:0 mso-generic-font-family:auto mso-font-pitch:variable mso-font-signature:50331648 0 0 0 1 0; /* Style Definitions *p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNorma {mso-style-parent:"" margin:0cm margin-bottom:.0001pt mso-pagination:widow-orphan font-size:12.0pt font-family:Times mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;p.MsoHeading8, li.MsoHeading8, div.MsoHeading {mso-style-next:Normal margin:0cm margin-bottom:.0001pt mso-pagination:widow-orphan page-break-after:avoid mso-outline-level:8 background:#D9D9D9 mso-shading:windowtext mso-pattern:gray-15 auto font-size:12.0pt font-family:"American Typewriter" mso-ansi-language:EN-GB font-style:italic;p.MsoBodyText, li.MsoBodyText, div.MsoBodyTex {margin:0cm margin-bottom:.0001pt mso-pagination:none tab-stops:28.0pt 56.0pt 84.0pt 112.0pt 140.0pt 168.0pt 196.0pt 224.0pt 252.0pt 280.0pt 308.0pt 336.0pt mso-layout-grid-align:none text-autospace:none font-size:12.0pt font-family:"Gill Sans" color:black;p.MsoBodyText2, li.MsoBodyText2, div.MsoBodyText {margin:0cm margin-bottom:.0001pt mso-pagination:widow-orphan font-size:11.0pt font-family:"American Typewriter" mso-ansi-language:EN-GB;@page Section {size:612.0pt 792.0pt margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt mso-header-margin:36.0pt mso-footer-margin:36.0pt mso-paper-source:0;div.Section {page:Section1;-->20.1.201
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cc. Michael Attenborough, Neil Constable and other Almeida board members Dear Board member
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Art Not Oil campaigns in part to persuade cultural institutions, as part of their responsibility to present and future generations, to turn down funding from companies whose core business is in fossil fuels
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I am writing to you as a member of the Board of the Almeida Theatre to request formally that the issue of BP sponsorship be discussed by the board as soon as possible. I also ask that, if possible, the Board mandates the Almeida to review its sponsorship criteria and to adopt new climate-friendly guidelines
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There is a detailed report about BP’s involvement in Canadian tar sands included in this mailing, but please let me know if you would like a more detailed critique of BP, or if you would like to know more about the Art Not Oil project
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Finally, I would like you to ask the Almeida’s management team if ignoring a series of polite, serious communications on this issue reflects well on the theatre. (The first of those is on the back of this letter.
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Thanks for reading, and all good wishes for 2010
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Mark Brow
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Art Not Oil – ‘for creativity, climate justice and an end to fossil fuel industry sponsorship of the arts’ c/o 62 Fieldgate Street, London E1 1ES
Tel: 07709 545116 info@artnotoil.org.uk www.artnotoil.org.u
2.5.09 
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cc. Michael Attenboroug
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Dear Neil Constable
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I’m writing to you with our concerns about oil industry sponsorship of arts and culture, and in particular about BP, which I see is a sponsor of The Almeida
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It’s our view that oil is a curse that fuels wars for resources like that now being waged at such a high cost in Iraq. It is also the greatest cause of climate change, which, according to the government’s Chief Scientist, could result in the death of 400 million people, mostly in the poorest countries of the world
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Wherever BP operates, it takes a catastrophic toll on lives, livelihoods and the environment, (some of which are listed on the other side of this letter.) Perhaps most worryingly, late in 2007 BP bought a large share of Husky Energy, a company committed to extracting oil from the tar sands of Alberta in Canada. Tar sands contain oil which is massively energy-intensive to bring to market
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Obviously, funding for the arts is scarce at present, but there seems to be a great irony in the fact that government funding is pumped into fighting wars that are to a great extent about securing oil and gas reserves, leaving theatres etc. with almost nowhere to turn but to the oil and other fossil fuel-intensive companies for support. Might there be public support for a campaign initiated by cultural institutions for a massive cut in military spending, and a diversion of money saved into essential services, not to mention arts and culture
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We believe there can be a greener and fairer future for the planet and its people, a future whic
will require in part the consigning of the oil industry to the history books. Our campaign hopes to be one small step in that direction. I hope you are able to respond with your take on this situation
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Thanks very much for taking the time to read this letter
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Yours
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Mark Brow
As well as dealing with diary orders from with any luck very pleasepunters, we managed to send a clutch of freebies out to the bosses oLondon's sponsored institutions just before the Copenhagen climatsummit.
Pleasfind enclosed a copy of the Art Not Oil 2010 diary. I hope it’s celebration of art’s extraordinary ability to provide an emotionacontext to where we find ourselves today politically, socially anecologically.
Mark Brown, (co-ordinator, Art Not Oil) ********************Aof 15.1.2010, we've received replies from...none of them. This iperhaps unexpected, but we can only hope that at least a few of thewill have been deeply touched by such an unsolicited gift, and thathey will afford their diary pride of place on their well-apportionedesks.
Neil Constable, Michael Attenborough, Almeida TheatreNeil MacGregor, The British Museum
So, here we go with our 7th annual online gallery, ready to receivyou as a spectator, or if you'd like to submit some art. For thlatter, send what you have at a pretty low resolution tinfo@artnotoil.org.uk
Thanks, and have an excellent 2010...CALL FOR ART
Photo by Mike Wells; more photos:
This was a really powerful, spirited, soulful, celebratory and angrday. Last year we wrote to NPG boss Sandy Nairne about BP and tasands, and received no response. This time we came in our hundreds, leby our excellent Canadian friends, leaving the NPG, Canadian Embassand BP itself in no doubt that we will not allow a narcotising drip ogreenwash divert us from our commitment to make sure the tar sandremain undrilled...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8232522.stm
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Original press release:
BP'S "BLOODY PETROLEUM" TARGETED IN PROTEST BY INDIGENOUS ACTIVISTS AND CLIMATE CAMP
Indigenous Canadian activists and a large number of Climate Camperwill arrive in the centre of London on Tuesday morning to take actioagainst BP and the Canadian government. The indigenous activists [1have spent the week at the Camp for Climate Action on Blackheath, texpose BP's role in the most destructive fossil fuel project on thplanet.
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We would be very happy if you could make it...
They charge us 3.4%, so if you want to send us
Or make a transfer to:
Send us an email if you're outside the UK, and we'll sort postage etc. that way. If you're a bookshop, our distributor is Central: Central Books Ltd, 99 Wallis Road, London , E9 5LN
THE ART NOT OIL DIARY 2010;
The Art Not Oil Diary 2010 is a beautiful, stirring 365 day reminder othe extraordinary art that is being made in the struggle for a safer, morjust future, and the crucial role that our creativity will need to play iwe’re to have a chance of
Art Auction for Climate Action
This snapshot is taken from the soon-to-be available history of thfirst 6 years of Art Not Oil, which also goes into some detail telucidate the many ways that fossil fuel sponsorship is deeplproblematic...
Case study: Lord Kerr of Kinlochard
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Dark Mountain, DIY6 & Climate Change Artists: 3 news outlets for creative responses to climate chaos
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/05/430636.html
Outside Shell's AGM, (UK leg, Barbican, London, 19.5.09 New global campaign launches: ShellGuilty
Supporting Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni
Hello,
We're making a 2010 desk diary, featuring some of thebest work from across our galleries. (We've added the blurb again after*“IT’S A GAS DAY”*
* *
And this is how it turned out...(photos courtesy of Amelia Gregory; www.ameliagregory.com)
This zombie smells something good and oily... 
The Brazen Pranksters crank out another BP paean
ARTIVISM: A week of anti-war creativity FEBRUARY 24-MARCH 1. Theprogram so far is:
http://www.smashedo.org.uk
Treehouse Gallery Benefit Event – Call for works
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thetreehousegallery@googlemail.or
January 12th 2009
Hello,STOP PRESS: the Burning Planet gallery is up, as of 9.4.09
'The National Theatre should clean up its act and ditch Shell'
ARTE NO PETRÓLEO
Art Not Oil, set up by London Rising Tide in 2004 to combat oil
REMEMBERING KEN SARO-WIWA & THE OGONI 9, 13 YEARS ON...
In the 50 years since oil was first exported from the Niger Deltregion, Nigeria has become the largest producer in Africa, earning $60billion in oil revenues over the past five decades. But this historiwindfall has not brought wealth or stability to Nigeria's peopleInstead, oil wealth has led to crisis and decline, in what authoMichael Watts calls "a gigantic failure of leadership and governance."
1. La Tinta Grita/The Ink Shouts: The Art of Social Resistance in Oaxaca Mexico
http://www.fowler.ucla.edu/incEngine/?content=cm&cm=currentˍexhibitions…
Shell is sponsoring the National Theatre's new production of 'Oedipus', and, unsurprisingly,
Find it here: http://www.artnotoil.org.uk/gallery/v/ShellAction/ Here's 'The Stage' on the National Theatre Press Release on 'Oedipus' and oil funding:
Thanks for reading, and good luck for the future,Art Not Oil, London
The Carbon Town Cryer has recorded a song called 'Shell Sells Suicide', an expandeversion of the song we sang outside the Natural History Museum in 2006:
-----------------And a new poem:Oil habits die hard,
Even when we’re staring unseeing at televised reruns of the
Destruction we summoned with tarry fingers and thumbs earlier the same evening.
Iraqis, on the other hand, have no choice but to
Pay now for what we in good old Blighty have put off fonight-terrifiegenerations,
Under the flightpaths of untold departures,
Seething secretly at the way all this extinction wasn’t even able to get us happy
Riding on Fire: Iraqi art under occupation
OSaturday 12th July, activists from Art Not Oil Plymouth, GreenpeacPlymouth and
Outside, the rest of the Art Not Oil group andPeter Le Mare (who hajust docked his Peace Boat
In August, Art Not Oil Plymouth will be showing the 'Shell's WilLie' exhibition in one of the local cafes
and latest info on Shell's activities in Ireland...
