Just Stop Oil climate protesters after throwing soup at Vincent Van Gogh’s sunflowers at the National Gallery in London. Photo: Just Stop Oil/Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images
From mashed potatoes à la Monet to cake thrown at a wax imitation of King Charles and tomato soup squirted at a Van Gogh, protesters are targeting food at famous works of art to drum up action on climate change.
Why it matters: The high-profile protests have drawn conflicting reactions from across the climate activist community, with some warning that the tactic is counterproductive while others have responded with cautious silence.
What you say: 18-year-old climate activist Elijah McKenzie-Jackson, campaign coordinator for youth climate strike movement Fridays for Future International, told Axios in an email that history tells us civil protests like this are necessary for change.
- “While I can appreciate that these acts of justice may seem outrageous to people, I urge them to feel the outrage at the destruction, death and murder that all Western governments and corporations are inflicting on our animals, southern neighbors and ecosystems.” , wrote McKenzie-Jackson.
- 15-year-old Genesis Butler, founder of the global organization Youth Climate Save, echoed this view, writing in an email to Axios that “it is important for all of us to take bold steps to raise awareness about the climate crisis .”
The other side: Some don’t see putting fabled art at the center of disruptive protests as an effective way to push climate change.
- Among those speaking out against Van Gogh’s soup stunt was climate scientist Michael Mann, who criticized the move and told the Associated Press that people “will make negative associations with climate advocacy.”
- Researchers and journalists have since also argued that this type of viral activity does not reduce climate-damaging emissions — science and politics do.
Other youth climate organizations, like defend our future, a nonprofit advocacy group within the Environmental Defense Fund, refrain from taking a stance.
- “Defend Our Future takes no position on this particular tactic,” Kyli Wagner, director of Defend Our Future, told Axios in an email. “However, young people are understandably frustrated when it comes to the climate crisis. We have seen the effects of climate change worsen all our lives.”
- Vanessa Nakate, a leading youth climate activist, said the BBC yesterday that she wishes people would stop debating what “is the right course of action and what isn’t” and instead focus on the climate issues that are “happening now.”
zoom out: Environmental protests have a long history of spectaculars, says Christina Limpert, a social scientist at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry who has researched intergenerational climate activism.
- “I see some of this as the urgency of the moment,” Limpert told Axios. “They are panicking, their environmental fears are real and they are trying to draw attention to several things. It’s just not easy to get that message out because it’s being filtered by people in power.”
- While performative protests, in which activists attach themselves to devices — or, in this case, tape them to walls under soup-splashed paintings — aren’t new, climate trends involving them are new to younger generations, according to Limpert.
- “I’m not sure if these actions are particularly effective because I’m not sure who the audience is,” Limpert said. She says people concerned about fossil fuel extraction are probably already listening, but cautioned that these types of protests could further alienate those who aren’t.
- “I think people in power can just say ‘ugh,’ and that kind of rewrites that idea of youth as a problem.”
Yes but: Phoebe Plummer, one half of the Just Stop Oil duo who souped up Van Gogh’s sunflowers, said in a video that what they did was deliberately “ridiculous” so they could attract media attention, to “ask the important questions”.
- “What’s worth more, art or life?” the activists sang mid-stunt.
- Footage of protesters throwing soup at the glass-covered painting – which officials have confirmed was not damaged – has piled up 49.6 Millions of views on Twitter alone, while coverage of it has made headlines around the world.
“Climate protests with art [are] important because it’s a bold move that gets people’s attention,” the Youth Climate Save butler told Axios.
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