"What's worth more, art or life?...Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting, or the protection of our planet and people?" (Phoebe Plummer, Just Stop Oil Activist).
On October 14th, two protestors from Just Stop Oil, an environmental activist group, launched tomato soup onto Vincent van Gogh's "Sunflowers". On October 23rd, members from the climate activist group, Last Generations, dumped mashed potatoes all over Claude Monet's "Les Meules". This past Friday, activists from Last Generation tossed pea soup onto Van Gogh's "The Sower". Although none of the paintings were damaged due to protective glass, the protests have sparked controversy and conversations internationally.
A simple search of "soup protest climate change" brings up over 3 million results. Throughout the last month, these protests have made global headlines, increasing awareness and publicity towards climate change activist groups such as Just Stop Oil and Last Generation. Members of Just Stop Oil have protested against new gas and oil production by throwing paint onto the main office of a fossil fuel lobbying group and have blocked streets in London, causing over 570 members to get arrested. Similarly, members of Last Generation have blocked streets and sprayed fake oil on the Berlin chancellery. However, none of these protests have received as much international attention as the painting protests.
Despite the backlash, the activists are glad that their protests have received media coverage and attention. Phoebe Plummer, one of the activists who threw soup onto Van Gogh's "Sunflowers", shares,"[W]e're not asking the question if everyone should be throwing soup on paintings. What we are doing is getting the conversation going so we can ask the questions that matter."
Sources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/20/opinion/just-stop-oil-soup-sunflowers-climate.html
https://time.com/6224760/climate-activists-throw-food-at-art/
https://wwd.com/fashion-news/fashion-scoops/harrods-knightsbridge-store-just-stop-oil-1235395222/
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/vincent-van-gogh-sunflowers-painting-soup-protest-london/
13 comments:
I think this event goes to show that the media has a crucial role when it comes to how an event is portrayed. As you have mentioned in your blog, the media makes this out as a act of vandalism, and doesn't mention much about the purpose of these protests, choosing to focus more on the vandalism aspect. I remember seeing this and thinking that these protesters were absolutely insane for damaging priceless works all for some unclear protest, but now it's more clear that it was for climate activism. This really emphasizes how media can drastically sway the public's view of a issue, and goes to show that the media should be more conscious of their role. As for the protest itself, I think the cause is good, but the way they went about it was not. Potentially damaging priceless art for the sake of gaining attention has the possibility of attracting negative attention, as some are not going to be willing to associate with a movement that causes harm. I personally think that climate change is an important issue, and something has to be done about it; throwing soup onto art is not the way to do so.f
The unrelated nature of these protests to the cause they are advocating for is a major flaw in my opinion and I expect probably greatly assisted the negative portrayal of these events in the media. Many people, myself included, struggle to understand the connection between climate advocacy and pouring food - wasting resources - on famous artworks. This also exemplifies a larger flaw in protest and advocacy culture: I think many protests focus too much on gaining attention for their cause and too little on what kind of attention they are garnering and what the consequences of this attention will be. This was the case with these Just Stop Oil and Last Generation protests - the lack of relationship between protests and cause that was evident to the public, and most importantly the media, paved the way for the belittlement and demonization of what in other contexts would be considered positive, necessary advocacy.
I agree with Teagan and Jayden. The public's perspective of the protests is largely negative. A part of the negativity is because there is little connection between throwing food at art and climate activism. Another reason is that the media barely brings up the fact that throwing food did no damage to the art in any circumstances. I understand that the protestors want to gain media attention, but a flaw is definitely that, although now they are getting the message across, the public will now associate negative attitudes with activism. A large group of people will likely not even read far enough into the article to know what their intentions are.
While the methodology of these protests may not be ideal I definitely agree with Grace that the manner in which the media has elaborated on the protests largely ignores the reality of the situation, that being the lack of harm actually done to the paintings themselves. Continuing, a crisis as important as climate change necessitates a large amount of attention, but, with that being said the attention being garnered by the Just Stop Oil groups protests is largely condemnatory of the group and their actions and by relation, dilutes the importance of drawing attention to climate change much less bringing enough attention to justify legislation. There must be better methods of drawing attention to important subjects such as these without creating additional crisis.
In attempt to cover the story first, media outlets may have neglected the fact that the painting wasn't damaged after the protests. Due to this(and the many news outlets that negatively portrayed the protest), many people most likely view the climate change activists as destructive now. But, is throwing soup on a protected painting destructive? Personally, I don't think so. Matter of the fact is the painting wasn't damaged, and bringing attention to climate change is much needed in this era. As Ally mentioned, I don't necessarily agree with their methods of protest but in no way view their actions as the media negatively portrays it. Then again, negative perceptions of climate change protests have arisen and may have more-so harmed the cause than helped.
The role of media in creating a master narrative is definitely exemplified in this story. People will often read minimal sources about a topic because it’s easy and if they’re biased that will translate into a biased point of view. When I read the first line of this blog I’ll admit my first thought was why would they destroy a painting to protest for climate change? However, as I kept reading, I learned that the paintings were not destroyed. If I’d only read the first few lines of the blog or a clickbait headline of an article talking about this topic, like most people do, I would hold a biased and uninformed opinion toward this subject. I think it’s also interesting how the climate activists who threw the soup are content about the media coverage they got, though it omitted the goal of their protest in the first place. I feel like protesting just to get attention on a topic may not always be to its benefit and might make people associate negative feelings with a topic as crucial as climate change.
While the purpose of this protest comes from the right place, the media twists their message to paint them in a bad light. A large amount of the response in the media to this protest is negative, and while it is still getting attention, it is surely not the right kind. The way the media leaves key parts of the stories out of reports damages the noble cause that these activists are fighting for. While the media is having the public believe that these activists are the ones to blame, it is in fact the media. The public are generally uneducated on this issue, and when only reading clickbait articles, many are left with the impression that these protestors are destroying valuable pieces of art. I agree with Armita and the sentiment that not all press is good press, especially on a heated issue like climate change. With the amount of non-believers, this issue shouldn't be tied to something so negative, rather meaningful protests that show the true magnitude of the issue.
The act of the protest was fairly clear - to get media attention for a cause through committing a strange, and some would argue, a seemingly absurd act completely unrelated to the cause (as strange and unusual stories often gain more viewership). While the act of defacing art (albeit not causing any lasting damage) certainly got media attention, the highly negative attention is not the type of attention that many climate advocates were looking for. Acts like these could cast a negative light on climate advocacy as a whole and cause some in the media to wrongly associate the movement with fringe, extremist groups. A topic as serious as climate change shouldn't be associated with people throwing food at works of art.
As someone who has helped organize climate actions with some level of vandalism, it is necessary to have striking visuals, especially if your numbers are few. However, I think the activists were misguided in their message. They asked onlookers to choose between art and life which is the completely wrong question. The problem is not that people spend too much time looking at art, although there are issues with European stolen art museums, its that corporations and governments disregard the importance of climate change. I absolutely support vandalizing, stealing, and destroying corporate property in the name of activism but why target a museum in that way? I commend the activists' ability to garner worldwide attention but I wish they had considered that art and culture are victims of climate change as well.
While I agree with the ideology of creating a scene to draw attention to important and urgent issues such as climate change, I do not think that the way it was executed was effective. In the past, protests are designed to affect the group in power to urge change. For example, the Montgomery Bus Boycotts directly affected the city's income which made it successful. In many school protests, students skip school which directly affects schools and government through decreased funding from attendance. In this scenario, throwing soup at paintings has no impact on corporations that produce carbon emissions. The only people that are affected are the custodians working at the museum.
I agree with what Teagan has said. Pouring food on an art piece for protesting reasons isn't making too much sense here. Although they're doing it for a favorable cause: environmental protection, disrespecting a painting doesn't explain much relevance. It would only create rather, a negative image of these environmentalists and the audience would essentially pay attention to the wrong subject than what the protestors had intended.
I think the issue with this protest is that there was high-priced art involved. The outrage has mainly focused on the fact they almost destroyed a priceless piece of art. I believe that had the art been cheap and easily replaceable, the outrage would be less. They are doing this for a good cause but the fact that there is high-priced art involved derailed public opinion into a discussion about vandalism instead of climate change.
I think that obviously Climate Change needs to have way way more attention brought to it because let's be real this is the planet we are living on and we should be doing everything we can to preserve it. However, I don't think that throwing soup on art is the best way to attract the attention needed. Although the art piece wasn't destroyed as many people in the media thought, I do think that the protestors could have attracted and generated the same amount of attention without having to waste food. World hunger is another extremely big issue happening and I'm not saying that Climate Change is less important, but I think that the protestors could have used a different method that doesn't require wasting food to attract world wide attention on this issue. With that said, I also blame the media for portraying this protest so negatively. I've seen all over tiktok many people saying that the art piece was destroyed, which has caused this protest to be shed in a negative light, causing the whole point of the protest to be disregarded. I don't completely agree with their method of protest because there are so many people starving in this world, but I do agree with them that climate change needs to have more attention brought to it. It can't be a problem that keeps getting set aside.
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