ENVIRONMENTAL activists staged a performance protest on Saturday against BP’s sponsorship of a show at Scotland’s National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh.

The BP or not BP? group, comprised of artists and activists, drew attention to the oil giant’s “dire environmental and human-rights record” by displaying paintings depicting communities damaged by BP’s oil exploration.

Protesters also displayed banners and sang songs, before ejecting mock “BP executives” from the building in protest at the firm’s sponsorship of the Portrait Awards.

Performer Claire Robertson said it was “outrageous” that BP is allowed to “clean up its reputation through association with the prestigious Portrait Awards, despite its well-documented role colluding with human-rights-abusing regimes in Azerbaijan and Colombia, funding destructive tar sands extraction and causing environmental devastation with the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.”

Artist Raoul Martinez, whose portraits have been featured in the exhibition previously, supported the performance, saying: “I have decided not to submit work to the National Portrait Gallery until they cut their ties with fossil fuel companies, and I hope other artists will join me.”

He said the fossil fuel industry was based on “violence towards nature, violence towards the many communities already being displaced by the effects of climate change” and called on “all institutions to get on the right side of history and cut their ties with these destructive companies.”

Galleries and museums such as the Tate and the British Museum are currently negotiating renewal of their sponsorship deals with BP.