Three individuals targeted National Gallery paintings an hour after Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were jailed for similar attack in 2022

Three individuals targeted National Gallery paintings an hour after Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were jailed for similar attack in 2022

Climate activists have thrown tomato soup over two Sunflowers paintings by Vincent van Gogh, just an hour after two others were jailed for a similar protest action in 2022.

Three supporters of Just Stop Oil walked into the National Gallery in London, where an exhibition of Van Gogh’s collected works is on display, at 2.30pm on Friday afternoon, and threw Heinz soup over Sunflowers 1889 and Sunflowers 1888.

The latter was the same work targeted by Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland in 2022. That pair are now among 25 supporters of Just Stop Oil in jail for climate protests.

  • PugJesus@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3220·
    2 months ago

    I agree except that potential damage to historical pieces makes me extremely upset.

    I would prefer they ACTUALLY riot to that.

    … and, in fact, that would probably be much more effective.

    • Barbarian@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      467·
      2 months ago

      They tried protesting at oil infrastructure, they stopped multiple oil terminals in the UK being used for weeks and caused shortages in various parts of the UK. Hundreds went to prison and everyone forgot about it after a week.

      They throw soup at glass, 2 people go to a police station for a few days and people are still talking about it months later.

      Unfortunately, they have to exist within the constraints of modern news media, outrage cycles and social media, and that influences their decisions.

      • AlpacaChariot@lemmy.worldEnglish
        86·
        2 months ago

        People are mostly talking about what a bunch of idiots they are though.

        This lot look like they were cast by the daily mail, they couldn’t be more of a caricature. It is absolutely not effective communication.

        • Barbarian@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
          92·
          2 months ago

          Those look like 3 random people to me. I’m not seeing the caricature. For them to not be caricatures, what would you expect them to look like?

      • AA5B@lemmy.worldEnglish
        11·
        2 months ago

        I understand they used to protest for climate action, but now they’re just nutcases making it harder for the rest of us.

        I guess good for them that they got their moment of attention, but not all attention is good attention. Especially over here in the US, it’s hard enough getting half the population to care about the environment, and now they’re just dismiss it as “those nutcases”. This does not help anyone.

    • Keith@lemmy.zipEnglish
      413·
      2 months ago

      I mean JSO never actually tried to damage historical pieces. The paintings are behind glass