On the October 31, 2025 the artist-activist collective Fossil Free Culture NL (FFCNL) exposed just how outdated fossil sponsorship has become. The collective made it clear: they will keep the pressure on until the museum finally ends its partnerships with GasTerra and Gasunie: two companies at the heart of the Dutch fossil fuel industry.
The Last Museum Standing
The Groninger Museum now holds a dubious distinction: it is the last major museum in the Netherlands still accepting direct fossil sponsorship. Its neighbour, the Drents Museum, recently cut ties with Nederlandse Aardolie Maatschappij (NAM).
To mark this shift, the collective occupied the most stimulating room of the exhibition It’s About Time, transforming it into a living countdown. A performance that measured the moments since other institutions finally read the writing on the wall.
Their message was clear: while others have moved forward, the Groninger Museum remains stuck in the past, legitimising industries driving the climate crisis.
A Slow Awakening
Following the performance, the Groninger Museum finally responded. In an interview with RTVnoord and published at NOS, the museum admitted that it would put the collaboration with the fossil companies on the agenda.
While this statement signals a long-overdue acknowledgment of the issue, it remains to be seen whether the museum will take real action, or simply keep postponing the inevitable. Reflection without transformation is just more delay.
“It’s Incomprehensible”
The Groninger Museum has long presented itself as a museum of national standing, yet its ethics are lagging far behind. Accepting fossil sponsorship is not neutral, it elevates catastrophically polluting industries and helps them survive well past their social and moral expiration date.
“As the climate continues collapsing, month on month, year on year, it is incomprehensible to us that a public cultural institution would choose to continue promoting the fossil fuel industry,”
— Maria Rietbergen, FFCNL spokesperson
Passing Down Time
In the performance, FFCNL referenced David Lamela’s iconic work Time, once performed in the same space of the museum, in which a line of people count the passing minutes aloud: “It is 15:0X in Groningen.”
Echoing Lamela’s gesture, FFCNL performers formed a line of their own, reciting the names of Dutch cultural institutions and how long ago each one ended its fossil sponsorship, starting with the Van Gogh Museum, FFCNL’s first campaign target, and ending with the Groninger Museum, now firmly in their sights.
The clock is ticking.
It’s absolutely about time the Groninger Museum breaks up with gas.