Arts & Fashion
United by Om
The music project that brought yogis to Abbey Road Studios to help inspire environmental action.
27 June 2025
Main image credit: credit: Andrea Domeniconi / Climate Resistance
Today (06 July), activists from Climate Resistance staged a die-in inside Tate Modern’s Blavatnik Building.
Dropping a massive banner inside the hall, activists demanded that the gallery cut ties with Britain’s second richest man, the oil baron and Netanyahu supporter Len Blavatnik, and called for the government to tax the super-rich out of existence.
The banners read ‘Oil and genocide money out of art – Tate drop Blavatnik’ and ‘Abolish Billionaires’.
30 activists wearing black veils dropped to the ground under the banner, pointing at Blavatnik’s complicity in the continued genocide in Gaza and the deadly effects of oil extraction on climate.
The action took place as part of the Abolish Billionaires campaign, which is calling for a 100% wealth tax on assets over £10 million to fund climate action and public services.
‘Billionaires profit from poverty, fuel the climate collapse with their reckless investments and hijack our public sphere with their outsized influence. Len Blavatnik embodies this systemic failure: he uses money made from Russian oil to buy up influence, meanwhile scrambling to artwash his image with a well-placed donation here and there. His active support for Israel’s government months into its genocidal assault on Gaza testifies to his complete lack of vision and morals. It is shameful that a beloved art space such as Tate should bear his name.
‘Art institutions shouldn’t need to beg for petty cash from oil barons in the first place: much like our sorely underfunded public services, they need consistent support. From culture to climate action, our futures must belong to all of us. We need to abolish billionaires by taxing their wealth and use those much-needed resources to fund a safer future for many more than the super-rich few.’
SAM SIMONS
Spokesperson for Climate Resistance
The billionaire Len Blavatnik (net worth: $26.8 billion) made his fortune from the Russian oil company TNK-BP and continues to profit from oil extraction through his stakes in EP Energy.
As the majority stakeholder in Israel’s Channel 13, Blavatnik axed a key investigative programme which had exposed a series of corruption scandals around Benjamin Netanyahu.
Israeli journalists dubbed the move ‘a historic day in the destruction of Israel’s free press’.
Investigation revealed Blavatnik used his influence to pressure the New York City mayor into a stronger crackdown on pro-Palestine student encampments.
As of July 2025, the death toll of Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza has surpassed 55,000 and targeted massacres at aid sites have become a routine occurrence according to Amnesty International.
Last year, over 1000 artists and culture workers signed a petition calling on Tate to cut ties with donors linked to Israel, with the Turner Prize winner Jasleen Kaur echoing their demands.
Tate’s ties to Len Blavatnik were also previously protested by British-Israeli activists who demonstrated outside the gallery in July 2024 against his suppression of press.
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