Last night saw a wide variety of folks from the world of theatre come together to discuss the growing controversy of oil sponsorship of the arts. Many in theatre now recognise that climate change and environmental damage are pressing issues that need to be addressed, both in the very content of the work, and the…
(Guest blog by Ragnhild Freng Dale. For more information on collusion between oil companies & universities in Britain, see Platform’s report Knowledge & Power) A damning statement from the Norwegian committee responsible for university research ethics challenges collaboration between universities and oil companies. After months of deliberation over the ethics of petroleum research, the Norwegian…
Ragnhild Freng Dale reports on an important development in anti-oil sponsorship campaigning in Norway. October 2013 marked an important milestone for the Norwegian artists fighting the oil sponsorship of the arts in their country: Statoil ended their longstanding Bylarm-sponsorship for pop and rock music. Stretching six years back in time, Statoil and ByLarm have collaborated…
Sunniva Taylor and Christopher Garrard report back from the Statoil-sponsored Tennis Masters that took place in London recently. Statoil, the 66% Norwegian government owned oil and gas company, were the big name corporate sponsors of this year’s Tennis Masters at the Royal Albert Hall, for the second year running. The event lasted five days…
Global Frackdown 2 will be taking place on Saturday 19th October. It is an initiative that is aiming to bring together community actions from all over the world to challenge hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, so we thought it would be good to hear from someone in Algeria about the situation there. Algeria has made some amendments…
Behind the closed doors of company boardrooms and government offices a mega-pipeline is being planned and promoted. This huge piece of infrastructure would carry gas over 4,000 kilometres from the Caspian Sea to central Europe, and in the process would lock Europe into gas dependency for at least the next 35 years. Such a project…
A few months ago we published a blog post from someone who felt that they could no longer engage with the Bergen International Festival because of Statoil sponsorship. It’s now turned into a more sustained debate in Norway about the role that the oil company plays in the cultural sector. Here’s some more info from…
Controversies around oil sponsorship of the arts aren’t confined to the UK. This is a translation of an article by Ragnhild Freng Dale printed in Bergens Tidende on March 1st, which you can find online here in its original Norwegian. The Bergen International Festival, an annual festival of arts and contemporary music in Bergen, released their…