Activists install giant artwork by Anish Kapoor onto active Shell platform
14 August 2025
Greenpeace climbers have installed a major new work by renowned artist Anish Kapoor onto a Shell platform in the North Sea - the world’s first artwork to be installed at an active offshore gas site. Kapoor’s work, titled BUTCHERED and conceived for this action, is unveiled at the same moment as devastating heatwaves, wildfires and floods fuelled by the fossil fuel industry have hit communities in the UK and around the world.
To install the artwork, seven highly experienced Greenpeace climbers boarded and safely scaled Shell’s gas platform Skiff, 45 nautical miles off the Norfolk coast, yesterday. After securing a giant 12m x 8m canvas to one side of the structure, the activists hoisted a high-pressure hose on top of the canvas at a height of 16 metres above the sea. They then pumped 1,000 litres of blood-red liquid that gushed into the fabric, creating a vast crimson stain. The blood-like solution, designed specifically for this artwork, is a mix of seawater, beetroot powder and non-toxic, food-based pond dye.
BUTCHERED is a stark visualisation of the wound inflicted on both humanity and the Earth by the fossil fuel industry, evocative of our collective grief and pain at what has been lost, but also a cry for reparation. It comes as the fourth heatwave of the summer has triggered health alerts in parts of the UK, while a worsening drought has hit farmers’ crops and record-breaking wildfires have burnt an area twice the size of Glasgow. Extreme heat is also breaking temperature records across Europe and fuelling massive wildfires in Spain, where thousands of people have been evacuated. Earlier this month, deadly flash floods hit communities in China to northern India.
Commenting on the artwork, Anish Kapoor said: “The carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels is invisible, but we are witnessing the devastation that its extraction wreaks on our world. What still remains largely hidden is the responsibility oil giants like Shell bear for causing this destruction and profiting from worldwide suffering. I wanted to make something visual, physical, visceral to reflect the butchery they are inflicting on our planet: a visual scream that gives voice to the calamitous cost of the climate crisis, often on the most marginalised communities across the globe.
"BUTCHERED is an action that happens at the place where this violation starts – a gas platform in the middle of the sea. BUTCHERED attempts to bring home the horror, giving voice to the moral and physical destruction caused by ruthless profiteers. My work BUTCHERED is also a tribute to the heroic work done in opposition to this destruction, and to the tireless activists who choose to disrupt, disagree and disobey.”
Image: Activists install BUTCHERED by Anish Kapoor onto active Shell Platform. © Andrew McConnell / Greenpeace
