{"id":228534,"date":"2025-10-21T04:45:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T04:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/228534\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T04:45:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T04:45:09","slug":"protestors-disrupt-british-museums-star-studded-fundraising-gala","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/228534\/","title":{"rendered":"Protestors Disrupt British Museum\u2019s Star-Studded Fundraising Gala"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe British Museum<\/a>\u2019s inaugural fundraising gala on Saturday, October 18 drew the expected big-name artists, art world movers and shakers, politicians, and celebrities alike\u2014plus protestors with the group Energy Embargo for Palestine. During the event, an unnamed woman gained access to the museum\u2019s Great Court via her role as a waitress, according to The Art Newspaper<\/a> (TAN).<\/p>\n

\n\tEnergy Embargo for Palestine, an organization based in Britain, posted a video<\/a> on its Instagram account of the woman on stage next to George Osborne, chair of the museum\u2019s board of trustees. She holds a sign reading \u201cDROP BP NOW\u201d and criticizes the museum for accepting a \u00a350 million ($67 million) sponsorship from an oil and gas company that is \u201ccausing climate collapse\u201d and \u201cactively enabling the genocide in Gaza.\u201d During the disruption, Osborne appears to be nodding politely while a few in the audience boo.<\/p>\n

\t\tRelated Articles<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Protestors<\/p>\n

\n\tThe protestor on stage specifically calls out the wealthy Ambani family<\/a>, who owns Reliance Industries, an \u201coil, gas, and surveillance\u201d company based in India. The gala co-chair was Isha Ambani, daughter of Mukesh Ambani, chairman of Reliance. Isha Ambani has been director of the company\u2019s retail arm since 2014. Reliance Industries and the Reliance Foundation were also the main sponsors of \u201cAncient India: living traditions,\u201d which had been on view at the British since the spring and closed this past weekend on Sunday, October 19. The show gave the Ball its pink theme, which was inspired by the \u201ccolours and light of India.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tTickets to the British Museum\u2019s inaugural fundraising gala cost \u00a32,000 ($2,700) each; TAN reported that ticket sales alone raised over $2 million in support of the museum\u2019s international partnerships. There was also a silent auction, though proceeds from that portion of the event have not been announced yet. (According to the Guardian<\/a>, lots included a pet portrait painted by Tracey Emil and a private tour of Coco Chanel\u2019s Parisian apartment.)<\/p>\n

\n\tThe British Museum has been embroiled in controversy<\/a> surrounding its financial arrangement with BP, with artists and academics calling on the museum<\/a> to sever its ties<\/a> with the oil and gas company. The Pink Ball protester\u2019s \u201c\u00a350 million sponsorship\u201d comment refers to the museum\u2019s announcement in 2023 that it would receive that amount of funding from BP over the next decade, in order to \u201csafeguard the museum for future generations.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The British Museum\u2019s inaugural fundraising gala on Saturday, October 18 drew the expected big-name artists, art world movers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":201041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[76,354,355,99052,109091,49,48,356,75],"class_list":{"0":"post-228534","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-british-museum","12":"tag-british-museum-bp","13":"tag-ca","14":"tag-canada","15":"tag-design","16":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=228534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/228534\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/201041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=228534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=228534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=228534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}