LIBERATE TATE WINS SIX YEAR CAMPAIGN TO END BP SPONSORSHIP OF TATE

Today oil company BP announced its 26 year sponsorship of UK art gallery Tate would end at the start of 2017.

Art collective Liberate Tate, alongside thousands of artists, members and gallery-goers, had called on Tate to end the contract on ethical grounds. This announcement comes close to the end of Tate and BP’s current five-year deal, and the group had been pushing Tate not to sign another similar contract.

Yasmin De Silva:
“We’re thrilled with the news Tate is rid of BP. About thirty years ago, the tide turned on tobacco sponsorship, and now the same thing is happening to the oil industry. Of course Tate won’t rub it in BP’s face by acknowledging this decision is the result of the increasing public concern about climate change and the huge number of artists, members and gallery-goers speaking out about against the controversial deal.”

She continued:

“BP is a company whose business model depends on trashing the climate, and it shouldn’t receive credibility by being associated with our most-cherished cultural institutions. April will see the sixth anniversary of the start of BP’s Deepwater Horizon disaster, we think of all the people around the world who have suffered the impacts of BP’s operations and can now know that Tate will no longer wipe its name clean. It’s time for other institutions sponsored by BP, Shell and other oil companies – like National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Royal Opera House and British Museum – to follow Tate’s lead and end their deals.”

Liberate Tate is an art collective that formed in 2010 to ‘free Tate from BP’. The group has made numerous performance interventions inside Tate galleries, including covering a naked man in an oil-like substance (Human Cost, 2011), a hundred people assembling a 16.5 metre-long wind turbine blade (The Gift, 2012), fifty people counting aloud the increases in carbon dioxide through chronologically ordered gallery spaces (Parts Per Million, 2013), transcribing texts on art and climate change across a massive area of the gallery floor overnight (Time Piece, 2015), and about fifty people receiving tattoos showing carbon dioxide levels (Birthmark, 2015). For more information on performances visit www.liberatetate.org.uk.

TIMEPIECE - AN OCCUPATION OF TATE MODERN June 13-14 2015

Activists occupied the Tate Modern’s Turbine Hall overnight on Saturday June13 2015 in protest at the gallery’s sponsorship by oil company BP. The 75 demonstrators from the Liberate Tate group, dressed in black with veils covering their faces, spent 25 hours scrawling words of warning about climate change in charcoal on the sloping floor of the hall. They refused to leave the building when it closed and were eventually allowed to stay overnight. They left at lunchtime on Sunday

WIND TURBINE BLADE GIFTED TO TATE MODERN BY LIBERATE TATE

The Gift - Linkup Films from You and I Films on Vimeo.

DANNY CHIVERS AT THE ROUNDHOUSE AFTER AN INTERVENTION AGAINST BP'S SPONSORSHIP OF THE ARTS

LETTER SENT TO GUARDIAN NEWSPAPER REGARDING ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY'S SPONSORSHIP BY BP

Culture
Stage
World Shakespeare festival

Letters
Oiling the wheels of the Shakespeare festival



guardian.co.uk, Sunday 22 April 2012 21.00 BST


Today, 23 April, is Shakespeare's birthday and marks the launch of the World Shakespeare festival (Review, 21 April). Yet what should be an unabashed celebration of Shakespeare's continued relevance to our world has been sullied by the fact that the festival is sponsored by BP. While the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon spill continues to devastate ecosystems and communities, and the highly polluting extraction of tar sands oil brings us rapidly closer to the point of no return from climate change, we feel that BP has no place in arts sponsorship.

We, as individuals involved in theatre and the arts, are deeply concerned that the RSC – like other much-cherished cultural institutions – is allowing itself to be used by BP to obscure the destructive reality of its activities. We would like to see an end to oil sponsorship of the arts and are committed to finding more responsible ways to finance this country's cultural life, for our own and future generations.
Mark Rylance Actor, writer and playwright
Moira Buffini Playwright
Van Badham Playwright
Jo Tyabji Director and actor
Rod Dixon Red Ladder Theatre Company
James Bolam Actor
Sue Jameson Actor
Lisa Wesley Artist and theatre-maker
Arabella Lawson Actor
Harry Giles Environment officer, Festivals Edinburgh
Professor Stephen Bottoms Chair of drama and theatre studies and director of the Workshop Theatre, University of Leeds
Andy Field Co-director, Forest Fringe
Daniel Balla Producer, Gaia Theatre Collective; director, Coexists Events Space
Tom Worth Producer of the Globe's Hamlet on Tour documentary
Lucy Jameson Gaia Theatre
Simon Lys Gaia Theatre
Leo-Marcus Wan Actor
Tim Jeeves Artist and writer
Phil Maxwell Director
Hazuan Hasheem Director
Sue Palmer Contemporary performance maker and artist
Stephen Duncombe Associate Professor, New York University, Gallatin School of Media, Culture & Communications, Center For Artistic Activism
Kenny Young Songwriter, musician, founder of Artists Project Earth
Ana Betancour Professor, architect, artist
John Volynchook Photographer
Leila Galloway Artist and senior lecturer
Dr Wallace Heim Academic and former set designer
Tracey Dunn Film-maker and community tv broadcaster

BP OR NOT BP? THAT IS THE QUESTION

BP or not BP? That is the question
If oil be the fuel for us, drill on
All that glisters is not gold
Action is eloquence

BP or not BP
BP or not BP? That is the question

At a time when the world should fear much more the heat of the sun and the furious winter’s rages, BP is conspiring to distract us from the naked truth of climate change, and by pursuing a future powered by more and more extreme fossil fuels, like tar sands, deepwater drilling and Arctic exploitation, with its daring folly burn the world.
Something is rotten in the state of Stratford

The Royal Shakespeare Company have chosen to put BP’s money in their purse. Yet he’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf. BP is doing everything in its power to let not the public see its deep and dark desires – fossil fuel expansion and ecological devastation. BP is the harlot’s cheek, beautied with sponsoring art. It is the greenwash monster, which doth mock the meat it feeds on, and the RSC have made themselves complicit in its crimes. If this were play’d upon a stage now, we could condemn it as an improbable fiction!
Enough! No more!

Times are tough. Ay, there’s the rub. But all that glisters is not gold. And whilst comparisons are odorous, we do well remember the dropping of tobacco companies as sponsors by a host of cultural institutions. The arts continued, and so shall the RSC, freed from the grasp of this smiling damned villain. Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more!
We believe that action is eloquence

We say to the RSC: to thine own self be true. Be nothing if not critical and forgo your damaging relationship with BP.

JAMES MARRIOT SPEAKING ABOUT OIL SPONSORSHIP OF ARTS FROM SOTA12

Platform at State of the Arts Conference, #sota12
Posted on February 15, 2012 by James Marriott

Presentation by James Marriott on ‘Artists & the Future Environment’*

The first speaker was writer Jay Griffiths, author of ‘Wild’, followed by myself, James Marriott, speaking for Platform. You can watch an interview I did after the presentation at the bottom of the text.

Thank you Jay for a beautiful exposition of the relationship between art and nature. I’d like explore this further in what we can call the practice of creating art, and in specific, the role of the Arts Council.

As Jay’s explained, all art has a relationship to nature, indeed all art is environmental. Regardless of whether the artist identifies the work as ‘art addressing nature’ or ‘art dealing with environmental issues’, the work itself will have an impact on the environment, locally and globally. Questions that arise from this include:

“Is the relationship between the artist and the environment one in which there’s a committed attempt to lessen the negative impacts of arts practice on the Earth?”

“Is the artist trying to draw attention to, or celebrate, nature and the wounds that humanity inflicts upon nature – such as the alteration of the Earth’s climate?”

“Is the artist trying reduce the impact of those wounds?”

I’m speaking here not because of the work of Platform alone, but also that of other artists and arts organisations who are committed to attempting to lessen the environmental impact of the arts and to creating, or fostering, art works that draw attention to those wounds, in particular climate change.

In March 2011, Platform, like many others, did not have its RFO status renewed in the form of becoming an ACE NPO organisation. Not surprisingly we were somewhat dismayed, but when we looked around it seemed that NPO status had not been awarded to any of the other arts organisations in London Region that have an explicit environmental focus. So we gathered together with Cape Farewell, Julie’s Bicycle, Tipping Point, Live Art Development Agency, ArtsAdmin, plus John Hartley – former ACE Arts & Ecology Officer – and Michaela Crimmin – former head of the RSA Arts & Ecology programme – and wrote to Moira Sinclair, Executive Director, ACE London. Working collaboratively we raised our concerns that the Arts Council seemed to be turning its back on this field, after having been its champion. Indeed just months before, Liz Forgan (Chair of ACE) when launching ‘Great Art for Everyone’, had talked of the necessity of addressing climate change in her opening paragraphs. So we requested a meeting and last July, thirteen of us met with seven ACE staff, four of whom were at Director level. We strongly delineated the changes we felt that ACE needed to make.

Three weeks ago, all parties met again, and to our delight we could salute some substantial shifts that had taken place. The agreement which each NPO body has to sign with ACE, now has a specific set of environmental deliverables. Julie’s Bicycle have been contracted to assist all the NPO’s in reducing their carbon dioxide emissions. ACE have supported Cape Farewell’s programme and the Tipping Point event in Newcastle next week. There’s a ‘Green Team’ in ACE at a national level and this subject area – Artist & the Environment – was added to the State of the Arts programme. As I say, neither I, nor we, would be sitting in this session if it weren’t for the collective labour of those organisations that demanded a meeting with Moira.

Part of the intent of these organisations has been to assert that ACE, as a key funder of the arts in England, has a fundamental role in driving artistic practice in a way that reduces environmental impact and draws attention to the wounds of the Earth, in particular climate change. By analogy, there was a time when questions of diversity and disablility were considered peripheral to ACE’s remit – now they are questions which stand at the core of ACE’s policies. Just as they should do. The aim, and hope, of those who’ve been pushing in the past year – and we’re determined to expand this group – is that the environment will become equally embedded in ACE’s practice. The new requirements in the NPO agreement, is an important symbol of a shift in direction.

It is especially heartening that ACE is making these moves when it is having to undergo very substantial cuts in its overall budgets, decimating its staff numbers and reducing the scale of the funds that it can disberse. On account of these changes, and in the light of the ideological inclinations of the Minister for Culture, ACE is pushing hard to encourage arts organisations to raise funds from private and corporate sources. For example through the Catalyst fund, which seeks to increase ‘philanthropy’. At this point when ACE is requiring NPO’s to monitor and reduce their carbon footprint, and ACE is itself endeavouring to act with greater environmental responsibility, it is important to consider the social and ecological impact of those other bodies which arts organisations are being encouraged to approach for support.

Consider the corporate sponsorship of the the Royal Opera House, the National Portrait Gallery, the British Museum and Tate – the lead sponsor of these four commanding heights of British culture, is BP. Meanwhile the National Gallery, the National Theatre, the South Bank Centre – along with the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the National Maritime Museum – all receive key sponsorship from Shell. Both of these oil companies are explicit in their intentions with this sponsorship. There is an important distinction here – whilst arts organisations are encouraged to seek ‘philanthropy, these corporations do not see what they are giving as ‘philanthropy’, but rather describe it as a means to building ‘partnerships’.

They see it as making an investment and understand that they receive something in return – what they receive is ‘the social license to operate’. This is a term used by the oil industry. It means the active creation of acceptance, or support, of a company’s activities by key sections of society, support which then enables the company to carry out its core function. In the case of BP and Shell this core business is the extraction and sale of oil & gas, the transfer of hydrocarbons from deep beneath the Earth into the engines of our society and then out into the air as carbon dioxide emissions. The transfer of carbon from the lithosphere into the atmosphere. This process is fundamental to our ever-growing impact on the Earth’s climate.

We should not underestimate the role of the oil companies in creating this impact. For example, the Kyoto Protocol essentially divides the world’s CO2 emissions by nation state – under this scheme, the UK is responsible for 2.5% of global CO2 emissions. By the same analysis BP is responsible for 5.6% of global CO2 emissions. This one company is therefore responsible for more than twice the emissions of the 62 million citizens of the UK combined. Anything that assists BP and Shell in their core activities – such as that which comes through their sponsorship of the arts – assists in this transfer of carbon from the belly of the Earth into the atmosphere, which is driving forward climate change.

What concerns a growing body of artists and arts organisations is the increasing pervasiveness of oil industry sponsorship of the arts, which thereby increases the environmental impact of the arts.

As Jay said: “We need a change in the climate of art to create the culture which nurtures nature, not only human nature but all forms of nature.” Not so long ago few arts organisations considered the carbon footprint of, for example, their touring programme. Now a change has come about to such an extent that considering this is part of the funding requirements demanded by ACE. Now it is time to take this change further, so that arts organisations consider the carbon footprint of the bodies from which they receive finance.

The strapline of this conference is ‘artists shaping the world’, and even the Minister of Culture said this morning “the arts sit at the centre of the changes in our society”. A fundamental change in our society that needs to take place is to take our culture off the use of oil & gas in order to slow down the pace of climate change. The arts can, and must, play a central role in this, but this will not be done unless we cease to finance our arts institutions from the sponsorship of oil & gas corporations, such as Shell & BP.

* one of the parallel sessions, at Arts Council England’s SOTA Conference 2012, chaired by Alison Clark-Jenkins, Regional Director Arts Council England North-East

BP DESTROY OCEANS

FLOE PIECE LIBERATE TATE ARCTIC ICE

Floe Piece - Liberate Tate from You and I Films on Vimeo.

Floe Piece
Liberate Tate. Arctic Ice, canvas, light, water.

"The fact that BP had one major incident in 2010 does not mean we should not be taking support from them." - Nicholas Serota, Director, Tate.

[Floe Piece - an expression applied to sheets of ice not more than a furlong in length]

The Deepwater Horizon disaster did not end in 2010 for the communities affected; BP's harmful impacts are numerous and occur across the globe year on year. In 2010-11 BP pushed forward expansion plans into the Arctic in Alaska, Canada and Russia.

Oil extraction in this region is only possible because of melting ice caused by climate change. Spills in Arctic waters are immensely more complicated than elsewhere, and indeed BP is itself responsible for the largest oil spill on Alaska's north slope, at Prudhoe Bay in 2006, where the company continues to drill for oil.

This Arctic ice has been transported from the Arctic region to London, the home of BP; today (14 January 2012) it has been carried by Liberate Tate from Occupy London at LSX to Tate Modern's Turbine Hall.

The journey of this block of ice retraces the line of connection from BP's devastating impacts on ecosystems, communities and the global climate to Tate, an art museum complicit in this destruction though its support of the company's efforts to create a positive public image, a social licence to operate.

liberatetate.org

LIBERATE TATE'S SPOKESPERSON ON WHY FIGHTING BP SPONSORSHIP PICKS UP THE CAUSE OF TAHRIR SQUARE

Photo by Immo Klink
Liberate Tate's "License to Spill" protest at Tate Britain's summer party, 2010


by Coline Milliard, ARTINFO UK
Published: January 4, 2012

Despite public protests, Tate Britain, the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Royal Opera House are renewing their sponsorship deal with BP, which will fork out £10 million ($15.62 million) to the institutions in the next five years. On December 19, Tate director Nick Serota explained that the board had "thought very carefully about this and decided it was the right thing to do." Tate trustee artist Bob and Roberta Smith, publicly disavowed the move, but many, including the Guardian's art critic Jonathan Jones, feel that corporate sponsorship by the likes of BP is a necessary evil in the current economic climate.

Artists collective Liberate Tate has been — with Platform and Art Not Oil — at the forefront of the debate since 2010. The collective turned up with BP logo-embossed buckets of molasses at the Tate Summer party in 2010, and they are now starting a series of art commissions to "free art from the grips of the oil industry through creativity." G, an anonymous spokesman for the group, answers ARTINFO UK's questions.

You have been campaigning for two years, and together with Platform, presented Tate with a petition signed by 8,000 people asking them not to accept money from BP. What does this renewed sponsorship deal mean to you?

We had hoped that the trustees would demonstrate leadership and help take forward the art world and Tate as a public institution into the 21st century. The lack of ethical progression, however, was an expected blow given the entrenchment of BP in our cultural institutions to date.

In renewing this sponsorship deal, Tate is knowingly making itself, to some extent, complicit in BP’s many controversial operations around the world, including its tar sands extraction in Canada, the local conflicts in Papua New Guinea being exacerbated by its hugely problematic gas plant there, and its expansion into Arctic drilling with its Russian partner. Only by breaking its links with BP will the Tate board of trustees be acting in the best interests of Tate and the arts as well as affected communities, future generations, and the world we live in.

Why the focus on Tate, when BP also sponsors the British Museum, the National Portrait Gallery, and the Royal Opera House?

Tate likes to position itself publicly as a forward-thinking institution that takes climate change and human rights seriously as part of its cultural activities, so it seems particularly incongruous that it should have such an entrenched relationship with a corporate entity like BP.

[But] the issue is, of course, about oil and the wider cultural sector. There have been performances at the British Museum, and groups like Art Not Oil and Platform have chosen to engage with these other institutions, but we are committed to making this happen at Tate first and foremost. We believe Tate is supporting BP rather than the other way round. This association is damaging to Tate’s reputation and its relationship with an increasingly climate-conscious public.

You started Liberate Tate following a workshop on art and activism at Tate in January 2010, in which the curators asked you not to comment on Tate's sponsors. Do you feel that this renewed sponsorship deal means more censorship in the institution?

Some of us experienced an attempt by Tate to limit freedom of expression because of their fears about corporate sponsors. We have to assume that there are many other pernicious choices made by Tate and others due to oil money. This is not straight-forward ideological censorship, but marketised censorship that ultimately maintains the link between sponsorship and advertising at the expense of freedom of speech. Yet censorship is only one area of concern.

Your philosophy in a nutshell?

Free art from the grip of the oil industry through creativity.

How would you define your current relationship to the gallery?

Tate is the space in which we stage performances and other interventions which then resonate beyond the gallery in the art world and the public domain largely though mainstream and social media. We make provocations. Our artworks are site-specific and self-curated, necessarily situated in the honourable tradition of institutional critique, but we leave it to others to have direct dialogue with Tate itself.

How do you work with Art Not Oil and Platform?

We have a common goal and sometimes-common methods and initiatives with Art Not Oil and Platform. The art scene is very privileged to have Platform, and their research and links with communities affected by oil companies are invaluable in informing our performances. Art Not Oil are activists we greatly respect. We hope that by creating art inside the gallery we can contribute something extra and complementary to what these groups and others are doing.

Are the members of Liberate Tate anonymous? And, if so, why?

As an art collective we have a group identity which is paramount. Who we each are could become a distraction from the work we do. That is why, for example, we sometimes cover some of our faces in performances such as "License to Spill" (2010), when we disrupted Tate celebrating 20 years of their partnership with BP (against the ongoing backdrop of the Deepwater Horizon spill!) and in "Human Cost" (2011) in the Tate exhibition "Single Form." These are largely aesthetic choices though.

Some of us are artists with a public profile based around a very different set of practices and output. We include a number of staff from Tate and other oil-sponsored galleries who want to keep their jobs yet help their employer through the power of art itself.

Others are active in many walks of professional life. We are not seeking to get a name for each of ourselves or to make a living from our work as Liberate Tate so it just does not seem important most of the time, especially given our focus.

Could you tell me more about the "Tate à Tate" project? When did it come about and how do you hope to implement it?

"Tate à Tate" is an alternative audio tour of Tate, with sound works by commissioned artists, allowing anyone visiting Tate to be part of a Liberate Tate durational performance in an unsanctioned installation inside the galleries providing a problematised experience of the presence of BP within these spaces. The work takes place in three parts — Tate Britain, Tate Modern, and the boat journey in between the two. We have been lucky to work with artists such as Ansuman Biswas, Isa Suarez, and Phil England on the project.

All the recording and mixes are finished so we are now in production, and it will be unveiled in the coming months. Members of First Nation indigenous communities in Canada impacted by tar sands have already had a trial run when they were passing through London.

The Guardian's Jonathan Jones has called protests against the BP sponsorship "the stupidest and most misplaced of supposedly radical campaigns." How would you like to respond?

Yes, he said: "Why not do something useful like join Occupy? While protests around the world this year, from Wall Street to Tahrir Square, have picked the right causes and enemies, the BP art campaign is mistargeted, misconceived, and massively self-indulgent."

It is misguided to not see what Liberate Tate and our allies are doing as part of this global movement for public accountability of public institutions and for ending vested interests that are shutting down the possibilities of a better future. Many of us are active in Occupy and on Saturday 14 January, we are taking part in an afternoon event (2-6pm), "The Corporate Occupation of the Arts," at the Bank of Ideas that has been squatted by the Occupy LSX folks. We work with and in solidarity with artists and activists in the Middle East. Many oil companies like BP have a terrible track record of supporting repressive regimes like that of Mubarak that have tried to crush the Arab Spring, and sponsorship implicates art institutions in that. When you are targeting BP sponsorship of Tate, you are also supporting the uprising of Tahrir Square.

We welcome all commentators to this debate, even when what they might say is perhaps not really thought out. If you want to attack Liberate Tate knock yourself out — as Gandhi may not have actually said: "First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they attack you. Then you win."

In a time of severe funding cuts for the arts, what alternative to private sponsorship do you champion?

Firstly, for all sides of the debate around oil sponsorship of the arts, we need to know how much BP is giving Tate as it has been kept a secret. How much of the £10 million is coming Tate's way? A publicly known figure would provide a solid point of reference to discuss the value of BP sponsorship, and the practical steps in a move away from it.

Secondly, there is a difference between being against any sort of private sponsorship and being against oil companies in particular given they are some of the most reprehensible corporate entities. People have different views on the wider question of corporates and art even within the Liberate Tate collective. We would welcome a deeper and wider debate about private sponsorship models — we have never said we are against business supporting arts per se.

What we refuse to accept is that the art world has to be stuck in the 20th century in regard to how corporations are involved, especially with public galleries, when a company clearly has harmful impact on society.

Arms manufacturers and tobacco companies are no longer socially acceptable as partners. Is the art world really in total ethical stasis, not able to progress further? When we know what we do about climate change and oil, and what BP has done and how many artists and art lovers object to that, it is only a matter of time before the exclusion of oil companies is the next leap forward.

What is your next step?

There are more Liberate Tate artworks and commissions in the pipeline (sic). When Tate and the other arts giants agreed a new BP sponsorship deal, the London Evening Standard headline had a nod to our work. It said: THIS COULD GET MESSY. We quite agree.

The effort to end oil sponsorship of the arts intensifies. Our invitation for artists, art lovers, and other concerned members of the public to act to ensure that Tate ends its oil sponsorship remains open. Together we can imagine and bring about culture beyond oil, where art is put back into the service of life.

PLATFORM - THE CORPORATE OCCUPATION OF THE ARTS

Posted on January 4, 2012 by Kevin Smith

The Corporate Occupation of the Arts. -OccupyLSX / The Bank of Ideas
Earl St. EC2A 2AL – Sat 14th Jan 2012. 2- 6pm

We’re taking part in this afternoon of presentations and discussions at the Bank of Ideas, an abandoned office block purchased several years ago by the bank UBS and squatted bu Occupy LSX. More info about it all below

Could there be a crueller indictment of an art world that is convinced of its moral superiority to mainstream culture than to be subsidized by one of the criminal financial forces that has brought our culture to its very knees?
Mat Gleason

Art is the ultimate emotional branding.
Brunswick International Corporate Communications Partnership.

An afternoon of talks by artists, activists, writers and academics to explore the parasitic and exploitative relationship between art and capital. We will discuss the politics of sponsorship; activism against sponsors, Bloombergism, the transformation of the Art School and the ideological takeover of the dissensual values of art.

· Corporations who refuse to pay £billions in taxes are fêted for their relatively paltry largess and are awarded privileged access to events and policymaking. Donations no longer fit within notions of ‘patronage’ or ‘philanthropy’ but are strategically targeted blue chip branding exercises. This is part of a much bigger drive towards the marketisation of the arts and the privatisation of cultural provision and public space.

· There is a long history of Art’s aesthetic and sensual pleasures being used to conceal ethical irresponsibility. Now though, the space of dissent and critique is commodified and art’s autonomy is turned against itself.

· Whist arts funding is slashed, and the public space decimated, the artist’s labour is being yet more intensively exploited. Dozens of Associate Lectureship have been axed, a 10% wage cut imposed on ICA staff and 800 interns work for free. All this whilst corporate capital turns its casino logic into spectacular saleroom values.

· In campaigns against BP’s sponsorship of the Tate and demonstrations at auction houses, activists have recently brought public attention how the arts are used to whitewash toxic reputations and in the appropriation of arts positive values and associations. No account is taken of the contradiction between the utter incompatibility between the ethical promise of the art world and the destructive activities of many corporations.

· As is usual in Occupy, our conversation will turn from analysis and critique of ‘what is going on’ into planning and strategy for ‘what is to be done’.

Organised by Andrew Conio. (University of Wolverhampton and Chelsea School of Art.)

Speakers

Andrew Conio. Introduction – The State Against Art
Platform. Licence to Spill – Big oil and the UK art scene.
Liberate Tate. Performance interventions in gallery spaces
John Beck (Newcastle University) and Matthew Cornford (University of Brighton). The Art School and the Culture Shed.
John Cussans. Protest Pedagogy.
Mark McGowan. There is No Law Against Art.
Dean Kenning. The Corporate Occupation of Art.
Freee. Mel Jordan, Andy Hewitt and Dave Beech. Economists are Wrong.
Precarious Workers Brigade. How Can we Fight the Marketisaton and Corporatisation of the Arts?
Discussion.

THE OIL SHOW EXHIBITION BY HMKV DORTMUND GERMANY

TATE CONSIDERS ENDING BP SPONSORSHIP DEAL AFTER ENVIRONMENTAL PROTESTS

Anti-BP protesters at Tate
Environmental protesters throw molasses on the steps outside Tate Britain in protest against its sponsorship deal with BP. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images


Director of group that covers four galleries around UK says decision is due on partnership deal with BP, expiring next year
Alex Needham
guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 December 2011 17.05 GMT
Article history

The Tate galleries are considering ending their 20-year partnership with BP after demonstrations by green campaigners.

Tate's director, Nicholas Serota, has said a decision will be taken over whether to renew its contract with BP "quite soon", after earlier this month being presented with a petition against the gallery's sponsorship by the oil company from 8,000 Tate members and visitors organised by pressure groups Platform, Liberate Tate and Art Not Oil.

Serota said: "You will not be surprised to learn that the whole question of the support from BP has exercised trustees quite seriously over the past two years. Both the trustees as a board but also the trustees through their ethics committee, which was instituted about four years ago, have looked very carefully at the question."

He added that the trustees had decided that "the good that has been done through the money that has come from BP for the gallery, and for the gallery's public, has been very profound". The current three-year sponsorship deal runs out in 2012.

Art Not Oil has also called for artists to protest against BP's sponsorship of next year's Cultural Olympiad and Festival of London. The group is calling for artists to submit work to a "BP-free Cultural Olympiad gallery" on their website.

"The Olympics has presented the company with the perfect platform for some aggressive rebranding," said the group, calling on artists to take up the "opportunity to expose the gulf between the company's rhetoric and its actions".

The oil company's sponsorship of British arts institutions including the National Gallery and the Royal Opera House, thought to be worth more than £1m a year, has attracted protests since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April 2010. Two months later, five gallons of molasses were poured down Tate Britain's stairs at the gallery's summer party. Demonstrators have also let off dead fish attached to helium balloons in Tate Modern's Turbine Hall, which had to be shot down with air rifles by gallery staff.

The issue of corporate sponsorship is set to become increasingly contentious as arts organisations are encouraged to make up the shortfall in government funding by soliciting private donations. Last week, two poets withdrew from the TS Eliot prize because it was sponsored by the investment management firm Aurum Funds. The Poetry Book Society, which organises the prize, struck the deal with Aurum after its arts council funding was withdrawn.

On Thursday, Jeremy Hunt said artists should support businesses who want to donate to the arts. Doing so "is encouraging good behaviour by corporations", the culture secretary told a meeting of the New Culture Forum, a rightwing arts thinktank. Encouraging philanthropy, Hunt added, was his top priority for the arts.

The Arts Index, launched by the National Campaign for the Arts last week, calculated that business contributions to the arts were down 17% from 2007-10, but Hunt said he hoped this year's figures would show an increase of around 6%.

BP maintained that it remained "committed" to its role with both the Cultural Olympiad and the London 2012 Festival. But a spokesman said the company would not comment on the Tate sponsorship before discussions about its renewal.

A spokesperson for the Cultural Olympiad said: "BP are a supporter of many cultural institutions in the UK and we value their support."

DECISION ON BP SPONSORSHIP OF TATE TO BE MADE SOON

Tate Director Nicholas Serota says decision on BP-Tate sponsorship to be made soon
Posted on December 5, 2011 by Kevin Smith

Photo: Charles Glover

Pressure mounts on Trustees to reject extension of relationship with BP as more than 8,000 Tate Members and visitors sign open letter calling on the art museum to break links with oil company

5 December 2011 – For Immediate Release

The decision about whether or not to renew an increasingly controversial sponsorship contract with oil giant BP is due to be made “soon” according to comments made by Tate Director Nicholas Serota at the Tate Members AGM Friday (2 December).

The comments were made in response to an open letter delivered to Nicholas Serota at the Members AGM signed by over 8,000 Tate Members and visitors, demanding that Tate disengage from BP as a sponsor due to the devastating impacts BP has around the world. The Open Letter has been organised by a coalition of organisations including Liberate Tate, Platform and Art Not Oil [1].

In the text of the letter, signatories underline that they have “enormous respect for the cultural contribution that Tate makes to the world”, but are also “greatly concerned by the damage being caused by BP to ecosystems, communities and the climate”. [2]

Nicholas Serota said that: “The Trustees have recognised that BP has supported the gallery over a 20 year period. They have been in a partnership with BP over that period and have decided not to withdraw from that partnership in the belief that the good that has been done through the money that has come from BP for the gallery, and for the gallery’s public, has been very profound. They are in the process of whether or not to extend the relationship. All I can really say today is that the views that you have registered will be conveyed to the Trustees. It is a decision that is going to be taken quite soon,” and added that “The Trustees will have a very difficult decision to make.” [3]

The presentation of the petition came at the end of another difficult week for Tate-BP relations. On Monday (28 November) a national newspaper revealed Tate Trustee Patrick has branded the company as a “disgrace” [4] and on Tuesday (29 November) a new publication, Not if But when: Culture Beyond Oil was launched, featuring a number of people from the arts speaking out against the sponsorship link. [5]

That a significant and growing number of Tate members and visitors are adding their voices to those of artists with national and international standing for Tate to cut ties with the oil company is a clear demonstration that Tate’s Board and senior management now need to urgently review the relationship with BP.

Chris Sands of Liberate Tate said: “Tate can no longer respond by simply stating that BP is an important sponsor of the arts. Tate’s visiting public and its own Members are saying in large numbers that maintaining a relationship with an oil company like BP is harming both the reputation of Tate and the experience of enjoying great art in a public gallery.”

Mel Evans of Platform said: “When Tate Trustees make the decision about whether or not to renew BP sponsorship, they need to take into account how much the context has changed in the last two decades since the sponsorship began. We know that climate change is the biggest threat we have ever faced on a global level, and we know that oil companies like BP are chaining us to a dangerously outdated energy model while also actively lobbying to undermine low-carbon legislation. Tate needs to find sponsors that are in keeping with its commitment to sustainability and the human rights agenda.”

Note to editors:

[1] Liberate Tate (www.liberatetate.org) is an art collective exploring the role of creative intervention in social change dedicated to taking creative disobedience against Tate until it drops its oil company funding. Contact: liberatetate@gmail.com www.twitter.com/liberatetate.

Platform (www.platformlondon.org) is an arts and research organisation bringing together environmentalists, artists, human rights campaigners, educationalists and community activists to create innovative projects driven by the need for social and environmental justice. Contact: info@platformlondon.org www.twitter.com/PlatformLondon.

Art Not Oil (www.artnotoil.org.uk) encourages artists – and would-be artists – to create work that explores the damage that companies like BP and Shell are doing to the planet, and the role art can play in counteracting that damage. Contact info@artnotoil.org.uk.

[2] The full text of the Open Letter to Nicholas Serota about BP (online here http://liberatetate.wordpress.com/open-letter-to-nicholas-serota/) is:

Dear Nicholas Serota,

I am writing to you as someone who has enormous respect for the cultural contribution that Tate makes to the world, and also as someone who is greatly concerned by the damage being caused by BP to ecosystems, communities and the climate. Apart from the catastrophic Gulf of Mexico spill, BP is also expanding into devastating tar sands extraction in Canada, is drilling in risky regions in the Arctic and as a company is responsible for more carbon emissions than the UK itself. There is a contradiction in Tate being committed to climate action while also being heavily associated to a company whose business model is binding us to a catastrophically dangerous future and outdated energy model. This association is damaging to Tate’s reputation and its relationship with an increasingly climate-conscious general public. It is for these reasons that I call on Tate to: 1) Take the necessary steps to disengage from BP as a sponsor, and stop allowing Tate to be used to deflect attention away from the devastating impacts that BP has around the world. 2) As part of that process, and as a show of your commitment to the national public debate about ethics and sponsorship, to disclose the amount that BP donates to Tate, as has been the subject of Freedom of Information requests.

[3] Nicholas Serota’s full response at the Tate Members AGM 2011 was as follows: “You will not be surprised to learn that the whole question of the support from BP has exercised Trustees quite seriously over the past two years. Both the Trustees as a Board but also the Trustees through their Ethics Committee, which was instituted about four years ago, have looked very carefully at the question. They are aware, of course, that there are members of the audience, both here and also more widely, who have expressed real concern at the continuing support BP have been giving.

“The Trustees have recognised that BP has supported the gallery over a 20 year period. They have been in a partnership with BP over that period and have decided not to withdraw from that partnership in the belief that the good that has been done through the money that has come from BP for the gallery, and for the gallery’s public, has been very profound. They are in the process of whether or not to extend the relationship.

“All I can really say today is that the views that you have registered will be conveyed to the Trustees. It is a decision that is going to be taken quite soon. I will certainly register to the Trustees the point that you have made today and, indeed, the number of Members that have signed this petition.

“The Trustees will have a very difficult decision to make, I think, in terms of their responsibility as Trustees of the charity, to take monies that are offered to them from organisations that are continuing to act in a manner that is not in any way running against the laws of this country; that are basically a company that is continuing to act in a way that many other companies do in terms of producing oil, which probably many of the people in this room have used in order to come to this very event. But they nevertheless need to weigh all the considerations and it is not an easy choice, I think, for the Trustees to make.”

[4] See The Independent 28 November 2011: Tate trustee reignites BP row ahead of Turner Prize: Patrick Brill brands oil company “a disgrace”, as campaign groups call for end of sponsorship deal

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/tate-trustee-reignites-bp-row-ahead-of-turner-prize-6268886.html

[5] The latest example, adding to previous letters in national newspapers, is a new publication by Liberate Tate, Platform and Art Not Oil, ‘Not If But When: Culture Beyond Oil’, was launched on 29 November 2011 and includes a section dedicated to representing a range of artists’ concerns, including written statements, videos, music and drawings (available to read online here: http://blog.platformlondon.org/2011/11/27/read-online-now-not-if-but-when-culture-beyond-oil/ ).

BP FACES FIERCE BACKLASH FROM GREEN GROUPS OVER NEW OIL WELL

Campaigners warn that wildlife at Shetland site would be at 'significant risk' from any spill

By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor

Thursday, 13 October 2011

BP's plan for a controversial deep-water oil well off Shetland should be halted by the Government, four of Britain's biggest green groups said last night.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Greenpeace, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and Friends of the Earth urged the Energy Secretary, Chris Huhne, to refuse consent for the oil giant's proposed North Uist well as any spill from it would pose a "significant risk to wildlife" in one of the UK's most environmentally sensitive areas.

In a joint letter to Mr Huhne, the groups' leaders expressed anger that none of them had been made aware of BP's "public consultation exercise" about the well – which ended last week without a single response from the public – and raised concerns about the difficulty of coping with a deep-water oil leak in the hostile conditions of the North Atlantic.

The Independent disclosed yesterday that BP's own worst-case scenario for a spill from North Uist, to be drilled at 1,290 metres, or 4,230ft, below the surface, would involve oil leaking at 75,000 barrels a day for 140 days. This would constitute the worst oil spill in history and one more than twice the size of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico last year that brought the oil giant to the brink of collapse.

BP admits that in the event of a spill, the Shetland Islands – home to the UK's richest seabird breeding grounds, with more than a million birds present in summer – "may be affected."

Last night's letter to Mr Huhne was from Mike Clarke, chief executive of the RSPB; Richard Dixon, director of WWF Scotland; Stan Blackley, chief executive of Friends of the Earth Scotland; and John Sauven, executive director of Greenpeace UK.

The case for drilling the well is now being examined by Mr Huhne's Department of Energy and Climate Change, which can give or refuse approval.

The four leaders wrote to the minister: "We strongly urge you to refuse consent for this proposed well. It is less than two years since BP's Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico and the lessons from this terrible incident are yet to be learned and applied.

"Allowing deep water drilling off Shetland is dangerous and could be very polluting. We believe there is a significant risk to wildlife and protected areas, both around the UK and beyond, from an oil spill that could result from BP drilling this well."

The green leaders also said they were "very disappointed" with BP's consultation process, "which we believe was wholly inadequate, particularly in its failure to proactively engage with key stakeholders such as ourselves".

The comment reflects anger at the perception that BP deliberately tried to bypass potential objectors to the well by giving the consultation exercise very little publicity. None of the groups, who all could be considered prime stakeholders, knew it existed until they saw yesterday's Independent.

OIL ORGY - STOP TAR SANDS

WARNING ADULT CONTENT

“Oil Orgy” invades Energy Summit from You and I Films on Vimeo.

RENA CONTAINER SHIP HITS ASTROLABE REEF IN NEW ZEALAND AND SPILLS OIL

Blue penguin gets a cleanup from veterinarians after the oil spill from the Rena off the Tauranga coast

Rena container ship and oil spilt

IAN STEWARD, NICOLA RUSSELL, LOIS CAIRNS AND ANDREA PEARCE
Last updated 16:43 09/10/2011

The Prime Minister is demanding answers as to how the Rena container ship hit Astrolabe Reef and started spewing oil into the sea.

John Key was visibly riled by the situation when he spoke to reporters in Tauranga today.

He said the Rena had "ploughed into" the well-known Astrolabe Reef at 17 knots in calm conditions on Wednesday "for no particular reason".

Key said there were "serious questions to be answered" and two inquiries had been launched.

He said it was a "major ship" owned by a "significant international shipping company".

"We want to know why."

Key rejected criticism that the salvage and oil-recovery effort had been too slow saying he had flown over the ship and he could see it was a "very, very complex situation".

"I can give (locals) assurances that everyone is doing everything as fast as they can.''

Asked if the presence of international visitors and media for the Rugby World Cup meant it was a bad time for the accident to happen he said it would always have attracted media attention as it was such an unusual event internationally.

Key is due to fly to Christchurch this afternoon to watch the All Blacks quarter-final with crowds in Hagley Park.

Opposition parties, the Greens and Labour, have both claimed oil booms should be put down now to prevent toxic oil from reaching sensitive Bay of Plenty estuaries and wetlands.

And Labour are blasting the government for being '' woefully under-prepared.''

Green MP and marine spokesman Gareth Hughes says the government could ''lessen the risk'' of the deadly substance reaching vulnerable wildlife.

''It is going to be much easier to keep oil out of wetland mudflats than to have to clean it out afterwards,'' he said of a potential ''catastrophic spill'' from the container ship.

Maritime New Zealand is investigating using booms at Matakana Island and Maketu Estuary but there is no certainty, he said. It's also not clear if this will include Little Waihi Harbour.

''Both the Maketu and Little Waihi harbours are important recovering wetlands and should therefore be provided with oil boom protection immediately,'' he said.

''The urgency is real: Metservice now have a strong wind advisory in place for the Bay of Plenty with winds turning Northeasterly and gusting up to 40 knots on Monday.''

BARGE ARRIVES

The Awanuia, a a double hulled bunker barge capable of holding 3000 tonnes of oil, reached Rena this morning and officials say it will be a "matter of hours" before it can start receiving Rena's load.

Officials are desperate to get the oil off the ship which ran aground on Astrolabe Reef on Wednesday, leaking about 10 tonnes of oil into the sea.

Though naval architects say the ship is currently stable, forecast bad weather moving in tomorrow could change that and hamper efforts to avert a massive environmental contamination.

The oil that has already leaked into the sea is being sprayed with dispersant and today two vessels are undertaking on-water oil recovery.
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Health authorities have issued a warning that Bay of Plenty people should not eat seafood from water with visible oil contamination.

Medical Officer of Health Jim Miller said any seafood that had "off or petrol like odours" should be avoided.

He particularly cautioned against eating shellfish from Motiti Island which is the nearest land to the Rena.

Despite an apparent slowing of the oil spill, preparations are still being made for a larger event if the ship breaks up and sinks.

Shore assessments are being carried out in areas where oil could come ashore and the New Zealand Defence Force has personnel on standby should a clean-up be required.

WAKE-UP CALL

The Greens have called for a moratorium on all off-shore oil exploration as the grounding of the cargo ship Rena raises serious questions about the country's ability to deal with major oil spills.

It comes as Key last night sounded an ominous warning of a potential environmental disaster.

"It's going to be a huge [salvage] exercise and the prime minister believes we need to brace ourselves for a very significant event," a spokeswoman for Key told the Sunday Star-Times.

Environment Minister Nick Smith said the Rena "had the potential to be New Zealand's most significant maritime pollution disaster in decades".

Salvage crews are in a race against time to remove oil from the stricken ship and prevent further spills, as big swells and gale force winds are predicted for tomorrow.

Gareth Hughes, the Green Party's marine issues spokesman, said the accident should serve as a wake-up call for the government. "They need to put a moratorium on all drilling, including test wells, because what we're seeing is that Maritime New Zealand is stretched dealing with what would be considered a minor spill compared with what you saw in the Gulf of Mexico," he said, referring the BP disaster last year.

Key said the government was introducing legislation to ensure adequate environmental protections were in place if deep-sea drilling was undertaken.

"The prime minister would point out that there is no connection between deep sea drilling and a maritime accident of this nature. They are completely unrelated except that they both occur at sea," the spokeswoman said.

Resources were yesterday being sent from Australia, and four navy ships and 500 Defence Force personnel were put on standby, as salvage crews tried desperately to seal the ship's fuel tanks. Officials estimated that Rena has spilled about 20 tonnes of oil.

Hughes said New Zealand was not geared to cope with the potential disaster.

"We've had to wait days for international experts to arrive in New Zealand, we've had to wait days for equipment to come from Australia.

It highlights that a small country with little oil infrastructure faces considerable risks when we have oil leaking into our environment. This has to be a wake-up call for the government in regards to its deep-sea oil plans and energy strategy."

Labour leader Phil Goff said it was not possible to stop all oil exploration, "but we are going to make it conditional on every environmental safeguard being put in place to stop any disaster occurring. We cannot afford a disaster like the Gulf of Mexico".

The spokeswoman for Key said: "This is a very complex and very difficult operation and the reality is the salvage operation will take weeks, not days. New Zealand has one of the best salvage teams in the world on the job - they are the experts and it's important that they are allowed to do their work."

Key is to meet today with local officials and the accident will be discussed at tomorrow's cabinet meeting.

The Star-Times spoke to a Tauranga resident, Tommy Kapai, who sailed his yacht within metres of the Rena yesterday. He said he could "taste" the oil from the grounded vessel. He said it looked like a ghost ship. "There is no life on it, it looks like an old, tired granny of the sea.

"You can see the red of the bottom of the boat and then as you come closer you start smelling the oil and then you can actually taste it in your mouth. It's gross."

He saw a dead penguin coated in oil floating past.

The Rena is carrying about 1700 tonnes of oil - making a spill a potentially bigger environmental disaster than the 2009 Queensland one, when 230 tonnes of fuel spilled into the Coral Sea, north of Moreton Bay. That cleanup took 16 months and cost $5 million.

Salvage expert Jon Walker, flown in from Singapore, said the company hoped the first pumps could be activated this afternoon but he admitted that the weather was a factor for the success of the mission.

Strengthening nor-easters and increased swell are forecast for tomorrow ahead of a storm on Tuesday.

Maritime pollution response co-ordinator Mick Courtnell said capacity was being marshalled to deal with the worst case scenario - the ship sinking and all the oil being released.

If the ship sinks, another danger arises as some of the containers contain the alloy ferrosilicone which, if it contacts water, gives off hydrogen - which is a fire risk.

Walker said salvaging the ship would require removing the containers off the ship. As the Rena does not have cranes, another ship with a crane would have to be parked alongside to attempt the delicate task.

The ship could then be pulled by tugs off the reef.

THE ESCALATION OF BP'S LIABILITY

Gulf Coast residents continue to express their anger towards BP [Erika Blumenfeld/Al Jazeera]

As oil, sickness and contamination persist, Gulf residents and lawyers file thousands of lawsuits against the oil giant.
Dahr Jamail Last Modified: 03 Oct 2011 14:11

"If you got caught humping another woman - [if] you're both naked and caught in the act - you'd want BP to explain to your wife how it didn't happen."

This colorful analogy was proposed by Dean Blanchard, a seafood distributor on Grand Isle, Louisiana, to explain oil giant BP's continuing machinations to evade liability in the aftermath of the April 2010 disaster.
Louisiana seafood distributor Dean Blanchard, with recently found oil taken from a nearby marsh [Erika Blumenfeld/Al Jazeera]

During a recent discussion in his office, Blanchard told Al Jazeera that the fishing waters off Louisiana are only producing one per cent of the shrimp they formerly produced. "Half of the local fishermen have shut down," he stated. "They are dying. And [as] for the fishing, every day they are hauling dead porpoises in front of my place. I have a claim filed with BP, but none of us in the seafood business are being paid."

Speculating that he may soon have to close down his company, Blanchard spoke for hundreds of thousands of Gulf Coast residents who remain angry and frustrated when he added: "I worked 30 years to establish my business, and now BP has destroyed my life."

Fallout and responsibility

In a key investigative report released on September 14, the US government heaped most of the blame for the oil disaster on BP, which now faces a raft of criminal and civil litigation and billions of dollars in potential damages.

The report concluded that BP violated federal regulations, ignored safety concerns and crucial warnings, and made careless decisions during the cementing of the well nearly two kilometres underwater.

"That report summarised what we already knew, and it will help establish the punitive damage case against the defendant [BP]," New Orleans-based attorney Stuart Smith, representing more than 1,000 cases against BP, told Al Jazeera.

Smith has been litigating against oil companies for 25 years, and in 2001 was lead counsel in a case that resulted in a $1bn verdict against ExxonMobil.

"The fastest way to lose a toxic tort case is to rely on the government or the defendant to collect the evidence," explained Smith, whose firm has spent more than $2m for its client's cases by collecting samples and data and having them analysed by experts.

As litigation against BP continues to mount, several studies have confirmed Smith and Blanchard's concerns about the deep impact of BP's oil disaster.

One recent study carried out by experts at Auburn University concluded that mats of oil that remain submerged on the seabed could pose a long-term risk to coastal ecosystems. Large quantities of tar balls and oil mats have washed ashore, or have been uncovered by recent storms, at Gulf Shores and Orange Beach, Alabama, as well as at several beaches in Louisiana and in Pensacola, Florida. A recent Al Jazeera over-flight of the area near BP's capped Macondo well, the origin of the April 2010 disaster, revealed a long swathe of oil and sheen.

Dr Wilma Subra, a chemist and MacArthur Fellow, has - since autumn of 2010 - been conducting tests on seafood and sediment samples along the Gulf for chemicals present in BP's crude oil and toxic dispersants.

"Tests have shown significant levels of oil pollution in oysters and crabs along the Louisiana coastline," Subra told Al Jazeera. "We have also found high levels of hydrocarbons in the soil and vegetation."

In response to the question of what local, state and federal governments are doing about the ongoing chemical exposures, Subra declared: "There is a lack of concern by the government agencies and the [oil] industry. There is a leaning towards wanting to say it is all fixed and let's move on, when it is not."

Blanchard, who perceives the federal government's inadequate response to the BP disaster as evidence of its collusion with the oil giant, meanwhile joked: "We're fixing to have a fundraiser to try to buy our politicians back from BP."

Health effects

On June 1, 2010, BP board chairman Henric Svanberg announced, in accordance with the company's pledge to provide $20bn in compensation to persons harmed by the disaster: "I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies are greedy companies or don't care, but that is not the case in BP. We care about the small people."

According to attorney Stuart Smith, however, neither oil companies nor the US government properly tends to citizens who suffer as a result of their policies.

"I've spent 25 years suing the oil and gas industry, and the government has never been on the side of the people," Smith informed Al Jazeera. "But the extent to which they've behaved that way this time is unbelievable. The government has not even acknowledged any health impact [from the disaster]."

Over the course of his career, Smith has represented a number of chemical plant employees with a condition known as toxic encephalopathy, a degenerative neurological disorder that can result in permanent brain damage. Caused by exposure to toxic substances, symptoms of the condition include memory loss, concentration difficulties, fatigue, seizures, depression, light-headedness, headaches and nausea. Similar symptoms are now being experienced by residents of the Gulf Coast.

Indeed, since July 2010, Al Jazeera has spoken with scores of Gulf residents, fishermen, and clean-up workers who have blamed negative health effects on the chemicals from BP's oil and dispersants.

"The government knew about … peer-reviewed studies of what happens when people are exposed to these chemicals, and millions have been exposed," Smith stated. "Peer-reviewed scientific literature shows that you'll have these health problems, and yet the government does nothing."

Al Jazeera recently spoke with Steven Aguinaga, a 33-year-old father of three who confirmed that he acquired "critically high levels of chemicals" in his body after swimming with his friend Merrick Vallian at Fort Walton Beach, Florida, in July 2010.

"At the time I had no knowledge of what dispersants were, but within a few hours, we were drained of energy and not feeling good," said Aguinaga. "I've been extremely sick ever since."

Al Jazeera has covered this subject extensively, and, given that BP has just confirmed filing a plan with US regulators to pursue its first deepwater oil work in the Gulf of Mexico since the April 2010 disaster, concerns of future problems persist. According to BP's application, the company wants to drill four new wells at a depth of 1770 metres (244 metres deeper than the Macondo well) in an area approximately 300km off the Louisiana coast.

Ecological litigation

A biological study published on September 26 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences shows that effects of the oil on a small Louisiana marsh fish, the killifish, could be an early warning sign of trouble ahead for fish populations.

"The message that seafood is safe to eat doesn't necessarily mean that the animals are out of the woods," said Andrew Whitehead, an assistant professor of biology at Louisiana State University and a lead researcher in the study, which found that the fish were being exposed to oil in the sediment. The study indicates that the same kinds of health and reproduction problems are likely to occur in the Gulf as were witnessed among herring, salmon, and other animal populations in the aftermath of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil disaster, which prompted significant losses among various species.
Residents of Grand Isle, Louisiana, display their signs of protest [Erika Blumenfeld/Al Jazeera]

Doug Inkley, a senior scientist with the National Wildlife Federation, said in a written statement: "This study is alarming because similar health effects seen in fish, sea otters, and harlequin ducks following the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska were predictive of population impacts, from decline to outright collapse."

Unfortunately for BP, the Centre for Biological Diversity (CBD) is now suing the company for $19bn. A group that utilises the law to protect the lands, waters, and climate that species need to survive, CBD has an unparalleled record of legal successes, winning 93 per cent of its lawsuits.

"We have sued them under the Clean Water Act," Kieran Suckling, the executive director and founder of the CBD, told Al Jazeera. "The way the Act works is it levies a fine based on the number of gallons [of oil] spilled and how malicious or criminal BP was acting when the spill occurred."

According to Suckling, BP "should be made to pay $19bn under the Clean Water Act and in so doing be found to be criminally negligent. That $19bn should [consist of] entirely new funds, not including anything they've already put out, and those funds should be dedicated to Gulf Coast restoration."

CBD estimates that "approximately 6,000 sea turtles, 26,000 dolphins and whales, 82,000 birds, and countless fish and invertebrates may have been harmed by the disaster."

Cyn Sarthough, meanwhile, is the executive director of the Gulf Restoration Network (GRN), an environmental group active in all of the states along the Gulf of Mexico. GRN, like CBD, sues companies and government organisations that violate environmental laws.

"Much of our litigation is against the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management Regulation and Enforcement (BOEMRE), the group that was formerly the Minerals Management Service (MMS)," Sarthough told Al Jazeera. "There is also a challenge to BP's original oil spill response plan. We are engaged in this with several other claimants … [The plan BP] had in place was inappropriate and failed to meet safety requirements because it grossly exaggerated BP's response capabilities."

BP's liability: 'From bad to disastrous'

The Gulf Coast-based law firm Brent Coon and Associates (BCA) is considered one of the world's foremost experts on BP, and has successfully sued the oil giant in the past.

Brent Coon was the lead attorney in a case against BP for a 2005 explosion at its refinery in Texas that killed 15 workers. His firm forced BP to accept full responsibility and to compensate the victims and their families.

BCA now represents more than 5,000 claimants from BP's Gulf disaster and has been appointed by the Plaintiff's Steering Committee to head several key sub-committees relating to discovery.

"We represent a cross section of claimants, who range from people who worked within the oil industry, to shrimpers, captains, deck hands, restaurant and condominium owners," Coon told Al Jazeera in April. "We want full restitution and reparations for harm done by BP."

Coon reiterated that other companies involved in the disaster, such as Halliburton and Transocean, need to be held accountable as well. He remarked:

"From what I've seen, after representing thousands of people who were made sick or died from petrochemical industry hazards over the years, companies like BP, Exxon, Citgo, Shell, and others do not mind killing people as the cost of doing business, even when it's their own employees. I've seen it time and time again."

Coon additionally argued that, "[u]nless you criminally prosecute these people and make them pay for their decisions, they do not have a sufficient deterrent for the way they do business. Unless the government steps in and criminally prosecutes these bastards and hold them accountable, nothing is going to change".

According to Coon's calculations, BP will be forced to pay out another $10-20bn to cover economic claims. Some experts expect the total could be much more than that, even as high as $30bn.

Lawyer Stuart Smith agrees, writing recently that the federal government report on the 2010 disaster has caused the "state of BP's legal liability" to go "from bad to disastrous".
Attorney Stuart Smith feels confident his clients will be compensated by BP [Erika Blumenfeld/Al Jazeera]

He believes the report presents "incriminating new evidence" that "increases the likelihood that criminal charges will be brought" against the oil giant, and predicts the new findings will push BP to offer large settlements to spill victims, particularly commercial fishermen and charter boat captains.

"The company wants to put this nightmare in its rearview mirror as quickly as possible," added Smith, "both from a PR and business perspective." Corroborating this viewpoint is a recent Reuters report citing an anonymous BP insider as declaring: "We would like everything settled as soon as we can, otherwise you have lingering reputation issues and investor uncertainty."

Judge Carl Barbier, who will be hearing the civil damages claims against BP, has set a trial date for February 2012. According to Reuters, another source close to BP has anticipated: "I expect that early next year you will see the mother of all settlements."

If BP is found to have been grossly negligent, which the company denies, it could be fined over $21bn in Clean Water Act fines alone.

Given that the latest government report links the accident to BP's cost-cutting efforts, Professor Zygmunt Plater at Boston College Law School said claimants could receive a multiple of any compensatory award, which would mean that even at a 1:1 punitive-to-economic damage ratio, BP may have to offer at least an additional $5bn to cover punitive awards.

Smith is urging people with ongoing litigation against BP to stay the course: "Clients that hold out will, in the end, be compensated, because BP won't want to go to trial [since] the punitive damages will be so great."

He, along with Coon, feels his clients are going to get what they deserve.

"In light of this latest federal report, I think it may take more than $30bn to cover all the cases," said Smith. "One thing's for sure, BP is feeling the heat. We'll see early next year just how much the company will put on the table to make all this liability disappear, like so many gallons of crude."

Follow Dahr Jamail on Twitter: @DahrJamail

BP AND TRANSOCEAN ARGUE OVER FRESH GULF OF MEXICO OIL 'LEAKS''

The US Coast Guard has warned that more oil may have leaked from the Deepwater Horizon rig, causing a new round of finger-pointing between BP and Transocean.
The oil rig 'Deepwater Horizon' catches fire, Port of Venice, Gulf of Mexico

Photo: Rex Features

By Rowena Mason
5:18PM BST 28 Sep 2011

There have been several sightings of oil near the site of last year's Gulf of Mexico accident in recent months. On Wednesday, the Coast Guard issued a warning to Transocean, the owner of the rig, saying it "may be financially accountable for debris removal costs and damages" if the rig or riser pipeline are found to be the cause. There was no evidence oil came from the well itself.

However, Transocean denied responsibility, saying: "If a volume of oil has remained in the riser [a pipe], there is no question that it is oil from BP's Macondo well. As owner and operator, BP is the responsible party for all fluids that emanated from the Macondo well head, and BP has repeatedly acknowledged that responsibility. Transocean has accepted responsible party status for rig fluids, such as diesel fuel, consistent with the law. We take this very seriously, and we are committed to working with BP, the Coast Guard and other parties to investigate."

BP immediately distanced itself from the cause of the new oil leaks. "The Macondo well is not leaking oil and is not the source of the sheens. We will continue to co-operate with the Coast Guard to investigate other possible sources, including Transocean's riser," it said.

BP's share price fell 1pc to 399.8p, as a fresh arbitration hearing with its four Russian billionaire partners got under way on Wednesday. A tribunal will decide whether BP broke an agreement with the Russians by trying to do a deal with Rosneft.

Separately, Bob Dudley, BP's chief executive, said it was applying to develop more gas in India, after its $7bn deal with Reliance Industries.

BP WANTS TO RESUME DRILLING IN THE GULF