As It Happens7:05Attacking paintings with soup isn’t an effective way to fight climate change, says activist
Hurling soup or some sort of damaging food at famous paintings has a become a popular trend among climate activists hoping for a brighter future, but Lucy Whelan says those demonstrations aren’t actually having the impact those activists would hope.
“It’s a kind of spectacle and nothing has really been harmed,” Whelan, a climate activist herself, told Nil Köksal on As It Happens. “The problem with climate change right now is that so many people know it’s scary, but we’re quite complacent.”
In October, protesters Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland made headlines by throwing soup on Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers in London’s National Gallery. But the soup caused no discernible damage to the glass-covered painting.
In an interview with As It Happens in October, Plummer said that the action she and Holland took was necessary in the shadow of the climate crises.
“Right now, there’s 33 million people displaced by floods in Pakistan. Thousands of people are dying of starvation in Somalia due to extreme famine from crop failure,” said Plummer.
“And it took two young people throwing soup at a painting to get more people talking about the climate crisis, [more than] the millions of lives have been destroyed by climate disasters.”
When Whelan first saw what Plummer and Holland had done, she was shocked. But she says, while she wholeheartedly agrees with the intention behind the protest, she feels it’s a lose-lose scenario.
“Either the soup or the acidic liquid that’s chosen is actually going to damage the artworks, in which case, I think that’s the tragedy. It makes the protesters look like hooligans who are not interested in preserving things for the future, which they obviously are,” said Whelan.
“Or it’s not going to damage the work … then what we have is something that looks shocking, but actually it just makes us all go, ‘Oh, it’s fine,’ …[which] is exactly the kind of thinking that we need to stop being quite so good at.”
Making a difference
Other famous pieces of art have been hit as well. In late October, mashed potatoes were chucked Claude Monet’s painting Les Meules, and someone smashed chocolate cake on a waxwork figure of King Charles.
In Canada, protesters with Stop Fracking Around, a group demanding an end to the Coastal GasLink Pipeline project, poured maple syrup onto Emily Carr’s 1934 painting Stumps and Sky at the Vancouver Art Gallery on November 12.
“Her painting Stumps and Sky … is a lament of ecological destruction and her art actually paid attention to Indigenous peoples. She cared about all that binds us to the world. She seemed just the wrong person,” said Whelan.
Protesters said they chose the painting because the fallen trees depicted the kind of environmental destruction they are trying to prevent. But Whelan says that instead, protesters should be more thoughtful about the pieces they target.
“At least think about making some seriously disruptive attacks on art that celebrates consumption and economic growth,” said Whelan.
“I think we need to be more thoughtful, not more art historical, about about what is the target of activism.”
Whelan says she is on the protesters’ side. As a climate activist herself, she’s tried to make meaningful changes and taken part in protests.
She’s spoken to her local politicians in Cambridge, England, and talked with neighbours about how they can do things differently to protect the environment.
“There will be so many people watching attacks like this saying, ‘oh, I support action on climate change. I really do. But just not this not attacks on art.’ And I would encourage anyone who says that to make that real, to translate that into action,” said Whelan.
“If you do support action on climate change, [and] you don’t want to see it like this, contact your counselors, do something you do approve of. Walk the talk.”
Produced by Kate Swoger.
