In collaboration with Greenpeace, renowned Indian-born British artist Anish Kapoor has unfurled his latest work, titled BUTCHERED (2025), on an active Shell gas platform in the North Sea off England’s Norfolk coast. 

On August 13, under the cover of darkness, several Greenpeace activists scaled the towering structure to secure a 12-by-8-meter lavender-hued canvas to its flank. Once in place, they used a high-pressure hose to release 1,000 liters of a dense, blood-red liquid—made from seawater, beetroot powder, organic coffee granules, and food-based pond dye—sending it cascading down the fabric. The dripping mixture, evoking a raw gash, recalls the saturated surfaces of Kapoor’s famed pigment works and symbolizes what the artist described as a “visual scream” against environmental devastation. 

The dramatic unveiling of BUTCHERED arrives amid another season marked by record-breaking heatwaves, wildfires, and floods across the globe—calamities that scientists and climate advocates increasingly attribute to fossil fuel-driven climate change. Greenpeace has called for governments to impose new taxes and fines on major polluters like Shell, arguing that the revenue should help communities rebuild from ecological disasters and fund urgently needed climate solutions.

Speaking with Channel 4 News, Kapoor explained the impetus for this work: “I felt it was necessary to give voice to this criminal, morally corrupt thing that we’re allowing in our midst constantly, every day.” While he says BUTCHERED is “not overtly readable as a political act,” its creation on the site of a working gas rig in the North Sea renders its message unmistakable. When asked if the project constituted a declaration of war, Kapoor unequivocally responded with, “Absolutely. I mean, absolutely,” before calling on fellow artists to act to “save this beautiful world we live in.”

Anna Dickie is a writer and editor based in New Zealand.