{"id":157431,"date":"2025-06-04T12:07:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-04T12:07:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/157431\/"},"modified":"2025-06-04T12:07:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-04T12:07:10","slug":"uk-national-museums-back-call-for-end-to-relentless-negativity-around-corporate-arts-sponsorship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/157431\/","title":{"rendered":"UK national museums back call for end to \u2018relentless negativity\u2019 around corporate arts sponsorship"},"content":{"rendered":"

The British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and The National Gallery have backed a letter calling for an end to the \u201crelentless negativity\u201d around the corporate sponsorship of arts projects. The letter, published<\/a> recently in the Financial Times and written by Alistair Spalding and Britannia Morton, co-chief executives of Sadler\u2019s Wells, is supported by ten UK arts organisations in total.<\/p>\n

It marks the one-year anniversary of the funding controversy involving Baillie Gifford, the Scottish asset management company that came under fire for its ties to the fossil fuel industry and Israel. In May last year, following protests, partnerships were ended between Baillie Gifford and nine book festivals\u2014including Hay festival, Edinburgh international Book Festival and Cheltenham Literature Festival.<\/p>\n

The letter states: \u201cPartnering with businesses ensures our work goes further and has a greater impact. It adds more value and enables growth, ambition and risk taking. <\/p>\n

\u201cThrough partnerships, arts organisations also actively engage with the organisations that shape how we live…Our museums, theatres, festivals and artists need to operate within the economic structures in which society operates.\u201d<\/p>\n

Across the arts and culture sector, it is not understood that working in partnership with businesses is a proactive choice, add Spalding and Morton, stressing that \u201ccorporate sponsorship can never provide a replacement for public funding\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Science Museum Group, which has been criticised<\/a> for accepting sponsorship from the fossil fuel-linked sponsors BP and the Indian coal giant\u00a0Adani Group, also supports the letter. When asked to comment further, a group spokesman says that the letter \u201cspeaks for itself\u201d.<\/p>\n

Ethical issues around corporate funding and philanthropy continue to polarise museum professionals. In the wake of the Baillie Gifford row, the National Galleries of Scotland said<\/a> it would continue to accept sponsorship from the company.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile Maria Balshaw, the director of Tate\u2014which did not sign the recent letter\u2014criticised<\/a> BP\u2019s \u00a350m sponsorship deal with the British Museum, saying that \u201cthe public has moved to a position where they think [the deal] is inappropriate\u201d. The money from the oil and gas giant is due to kick start fundraising for the British Museum\u2019s ambitious masterplan.<\/p>\n

The arts communications specialist Martin Prendergast says in response to the letter: \u201cArtists and arts institutions need funds to imagine different futures. I fundamentally believe in the right to protest. For me the causes are right but the targets are wrong.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The British Museum, the Victoria and Albert Museum and The National Gallery have backed a letter calling for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":157432,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,18097,66738,393,4884,4842,7584,1144,712,16,15,66739,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-157431","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-british-museum","11":"tag-corporate-sponsors","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-museums-heritage","15":"tag-national-gallery","16":"tag-northern-ireland","17":"tag-scotland","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-victoria-albert-dundee","21":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114625017473374786","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=157431"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/157431\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/157432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=157431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=157431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=157431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}