On 15th of June 2025, as the Groninger Museum concludes its 150 Years anniversary exhibition Behind the Scenes, the artist-activist collective Fossil Free Culture NL (FFCNL) staged an unsolicited art performance with the same title, to commemorate the human and environmental cost of fossil gas extraction in the Groningen region. In one of the museum’s galleries, FFCNL installed a Gasquake Memorial by placing 1,932 black dots on the walls — each dot an earthquake caused by the gas extraction recorded in the region over the past decades. The memorial constructs a counter-timeline to insert the region’s seismic history into the museum’s celebratory narrative. As the timeline took shape, a performer recited the time, location, and magnitude of every documented gasquake, transforming the space into an immersive act of remembrance and protest. In doing so, FFCNL created a stage for the Groninger experience of gasquakes, to insist that the museum acknowledge its community’s lived reality, and cut ties with fossil fuel sponsors.
‘The Groninger Museum accepts money from the fossil gas industry, enabling these companies to present themselves as benevolent. Everybody who lives in the gasquake region knows that that is a lie! The museum needs to stop associating itself with the companies that caused so much destruction and distress in the Groninger communities,’ said Maria Rietbergen, spokesperson for FFCNL.
Sponsoring the arts is a way for fossil fuel companies to pretend they are acting for the public good. Nothing could be further from the truth, yet the Groninger Museum perpetuates this falsehood by continuing to accept their patronage. The museum has been bedazzled by the gas companies’ promise to become key players in the green transition through hydrogen production, but this new hype around hydrogen is simply another cloak the fossil gas industry uses to deflect accountability for their destructive acts. In reality, they have no plans to stop extracting gas – accepting continued gasquakes and an exacerbated climate crisis as mere collateral damage, necessary to maintain their profit margins.
The myth of hydrogen is nothing but a sleight of hand to distract from continuation of their catastrophic business as usual. Rather than enabling fossil gas companies to posture as protagonists of a green transition, Fossil Free Culture NL demands the museum drop their sponsorship, and strip these toxic actors of cultural legitimacy. The museum’s 150th anniversary is a golden opportunity to transition out of the fossil fuel age.
Pictures by Jedidja Smalbil and Ester Nano (Editing Anisa Xhomaqi)