Climate activists linked to Extinction Rebellion have begun campaigning for Art Gallery NSW (AGNSW) to drop its partnerships with banks that finance fossil fuel projects.
Drum Rebellion, a group within the Extinction Rebellion umbrella, began protesting outside the Gallery on December 4 and plans regular Sunday morning protests until the partnerships end.
Spokesperson Ian Colvin said, “AGNSW has shamefully partnered with some of the biggest fossil fuel funding banks: JP Morgan, ANZ, UBS, Bank of China, Macquarie Bank. Between them, these banks have funded coal, oil and gas extraction by $564 billion since the Paris Agreement in 2016.”
“While the AGNSW is benefiting from these sponsorships, their inaugural
exhibition in the Tank, part of newly opened Sydney Modern, is titled ‘The End
of Imagination’ by Adrian Villar Rojas. It explores the conditions of humanity at risk, on the verge of extinction, or already extinct. There is a common theme here and some hypocrisy,” he said.
Credit: Rigmor Berg
The group has written to AGNSW Director Michael Brand urging the gallery to cut ties to fossil fuel funding banks and pivot towards ethical funding in line with achieving no more than 1.5 degrees of global warming.
In response to a question from City Hub, an AGNSW spokesperson said, “The Art Gallery welcomes and respects informed debate and dialogue about many pressing issues the world faces today. Our artists address many of these issues in their work, and we provide a platform for them to do so. Like other art museums around the world, the Art Gallery relies on a combination of government and private funders in order to serve its public.”
According to the Gallery website, the corporate partnerships program “enables the corporate sector to connect with this vibrant and exciting organisation, to add value to your business and to inspire creative and meaningful interactions with your clients and staff.”
Credit: Rigmor Berg
Drum Rebellion will also be protesting outside NAB, Westpac and Commonwealth Banks on George Street in the CBD this week. These protests are part of a much broader campaign to stop investment in fossil fuel projects.
The campaign relies on research by Market Forces which was launched ten years ago to work towards a policy that “banks, superannuation funds and governments that have custody of our money should use it to protect not damage our environment.” They work with community groups to prevent investment in projects that would harm the environment and fuel global warming.
In October, Will van de Pol, asset manager campaigner at Market Forces, said it was “unacceptable to a growing number of retail shareholders and institutional investors that Commonwealth Bank, ANZ, NAB and Westpac are exposing themselves to heightened risk by financing companies that are worsening the climate crisis”.
“The science is clear that we cannot develop new coal mines or oil and gas fields, yet Australia’s major banks are lending to companies doing just that, including Woodside, Santos, Whitehaven Coal and Glencore,” he said.
With its focus on banks that fund fossil fuel projects, Drum Rebellion is extending the work of other groups such as 350.org that tracks sponsorship deals and lobbies arts and sporting bodies to cut partnerships with coal, oil and gas companies. According to a Guardian investigation, 350.org has a database of more than 400 organisations and institutions across all sectors in Australia that remain reliant on fossil sponsorship, including almost two dozen music festivals and arts companies, among them the West Australia Symphony Orchestra, the West Australian Ballet, the Queensland Symphony Orchestra, the Canberra Symphony Orchestra and Perth festival.
All of these campaigns raise similar ethical arguments to those used over many years to isolate tobacco companies from benefiting from associating with arts and sporting organisations. Those who support the campaigns argue that by causing global warming, fossil fuel companies are risking even more lives than tobacco companies.
The Gallery, which has recently launched its new wing, may be thinking they can facedown the protests for now. But whenever it is picketed, visitors to the gallery get exposed to striking images, chants and beating drums that focus their attention on the link between the exhibitions inside the gallery and fossil fuel industry financiers. Protesters hope that their actions eventually lead to pressure from the public and contributing artists for AGNSW to rethink its relationship with fossil fuel financiers.
You can find a full report on banks financing fossil fuel projects here
