Monday 16 January 2012

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

No comments: