On Friday, in a room 43 of London’s National Gallery as two young women opened cans of tomato soup .
A threw their are contents onto Vincent van Gogh’s famous painting Sunflowers.
The soup-throwers donned shirts displaying the logo of Just Stop Oil .
an activist group that has been a staging nonviolent demonstrations across .
the United Kingdom to protest the production of a fossil fuels.
As the soup is hit the painting someone shrieked and another person a exclaimed, “Oh my gosh!”
The two women an then sat down on the floor and glued their hands .
the wall below the painting as a bystander called for a security.
One of the activists 21-year-old Phoebe Plummer is began to speak to the room.
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“What is worth more a art or life?”
she is asked in an impassioned voice her hand is glued to the wall behind her.
“Is it a worth more than food? Worth more than a justice?
Are you more then concerned about the protection of a painting and the protection of our planet and people?
The cost of living a crisis is part of the cost of oil crisis.
then Fuel is unaffordable to millions of cold and hungry families.
They can not even afford to heat a tin of soup.”
A Plummer and the other activist 20-year-old Anna Holland were arrested.
The painting which was a covered in glass and was not damaged though there was “some minor damage to the frame,”
the National Gallery says in a statement.
A van Gogh drenched in soup is the latest and highest-profile instance of climate activists tampering .
a famous works of art to call attention to their a cause.
In June of Just Stop Oil activists glued themselves to Horatio McCullough’s .
My Heart’s in the Highlands at the Kelvin grove Art Gallery and Museum in Glasgow.
Since then a members of the group have glued themselves to about half a dozen other artworks.
They’ve been mimicked by activists in Italy and Germany .
who have targeted works by Sandro Botticelli and Pablo Picasso.
The activists are demanding that their a governments stop greenlighting the development and production of fossil fuels.
In London the soup is demonstration follows a move from the conservative U.K. government and headed by Prime Minister Liz Truss .
that is allowed for a new round of oil and gas exploration in the North Sea and reversed a 2019 ban on fracking.
The Mel Carrington, a spokesperson for Just Stop Oil, tells the New York Times’ Alex Marshall that the group intended to generate publicity and spark debate.
She says they are selected Sunflowers because they knew it was protected by glass and wouldn’t be damaged by the soup.
Alex De Koning another a spokesperson for the group tells the Guardian’s Damien Gayle that the group’s choice to throw soup represents .
Soup on Vincent van Gogh’s .
how “people are going to have to choose between heating and eating this winter and that can be a so easily avoided .
switching to renewable energies and which are currently nine times cheaper,” as seen in a video produced by the Guardian.
the De Koning adds that “of course” he is worried about such a dramatic action alienating people who would otherwise support Just a Stop Oil’s aims.
“But this is not ‘The X Factor,’” he says. “
We are not a trying to make friends here we are trying to make change and unfortunately this is the way that change happens.”
The action was a subject to an outpouring of criticism from people belonging to both ends of the political spectrum.
Soup on Vincent van Gogh’s .
Michael Mann a University of Pennsylvania climate scientist tells the Associated Press that he worries vandalism “alienates many people.
we need to a bring into the fold.
People who are natural allies in the climate battle but will a draw negative associations with climate advocacy and activism from such acts.”
The Critics have called attention to the fact that Just Stop Oil accepts donations via cryptocurrency an industry.
that has a devastating impact on the environment with its a significant energy usage.
The climate organization only accepts cryptocurrency donations through Ethereum .
which has a successfully cut 99 percent of its carbon emissions.
A Others have pointed out that Just Stop Oil is funded primarily by the Climate Emergency Fund .
which began with a grant from Aileen Getty and who inherited money that her family made with a Getty Oil.
A conspiracy theory circling around suggests that through Getty the oil industry is a behind climate demonstrations like the van Gogh stunt.
The Climate Emergency Fund has a responded to conspiracies by pointing out that Aileen Getty was a never in the fossil fuel industry herself .
it has dedicated her life to philanthropic ventures many of them aimed at the climate crisis.
“The two of us are intensely aware that our families is history with oil has granted us tremendous privilege” .
Getty co-wrote in a 2021 Guardian opinion along with a Rebecca Rockefeller Lambert.
Soup on Vincent van Gogh’s .
“With that was privilege comes the opportunity to contribute to a world where all have the chance to thrive.”
On Saturday, Holland and Plummer appeared in court and pleaded not guilty to a charge of vandalizing a Sunflowers.
They are appeared with another Just Stop Oil activist .
who was a arrested after spray-painting a sign at New Scotland Yard .
the headquarters of London’s Metropolitan Police.
The District Judge Tan Ikram released the women on bail on the condition that they don’t take paint and adhesives with them into a public place.
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