The Tate Modern is considering adding a 1.5 ton, 16.5 meter long wind turbine blade, carried to the gallery by Liberate Tate, to its permanent collection. The group, which opposes the Tate’s sponsorship by the oil company BP, renamed the blade “the gift” and installed it in the Tate’s turbine hall last month. The group then wrote to gallery director, Sir Nicholas Serota, “We think that it is a work that will fit elegantly in the Tate collection, a work that celebrates a future that gives rather than takes away, a monument to a world in transition.” Serota has responded that the offer will be discussed with trustees later this month, and until then the turbine will be housed in storage.

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Protesters, outraged by BP’s sponsorship of the Tate Modern, carried a one and a half tonne wind turbine blade across London’s Millennium bridge to the gallery last Saturday morning. A speaker of the activist group, Sharon Palmer, stated that “in a time of climate crisis [visitors to the gallery] should not be made to feel that they’re legitimizing [oil firms].”

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