What do tomato soup, mashed potatoes, and fire have in common? Just this year, the three have played significant roles in high-profile climate change activism. The reaction to these incidents has been anything but harmonious, and has got the world talking. But in all of these incidents, it always begs the question, has activism gone too far?
This year, the climate advocacy organisation Just Stop Oil has made news for a series of protests and activism. The organisation popped up early this year as a successor to the global environmental movement, Extinction Rebellion (XR). However, the fundamental distinction is that Just Stop Oil presents itself as a movement driven by young people. While the difference could be seen as either significant or not, their cause at heart is still the same: climate change is real and we need to act right now, if not yesterday.
Why is everyone talking about Just Stop Oil?
Earlier this month, activists from Just Stop Oil threw canned tomato soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s famous Sunflower painting at the National Gallery in London, the painting is said to be one of the most important pieces in the museum.
“Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?” “What is worth more? Art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?” These were the questions the activists challenged the spectators upon throwing the soup at the painting.
While the questions seemed almost like no-brainers on a regular day, the answers to them are now a bit more complicated. Is ruining a supposed priceless piece of art the way to go about discussing climate change and battling the oil industry?
The thing is, the painting wasn’t damaged. Not even a slight. The glass-enclosed picture was unmarred; the National Gallery eventually acknowledged that only the frame had suffered slight damage and that the demonstrators had been detained.
Should another question be asked here? Should we ask how we can strike a balance between going against big oil without having to pull off controversial acts like this? Or, is this the only way we can get everyone talking about a certain cause?
A typical response by both the media and social media is that throwing soup at paintings won’t save the climate. Again, while this sounds almost like a no-brainer, after the stunt by Just Stop Oil, it almost seems too nuanced. If throwing soup at a painting gets everyone talking about climate change and the oil industry and somehow leads to proper action towards the climate crisis, then throwing soup at a painting does save the climate.
Just Stop Oil spokeswoman Alex De Koning told The Guardian that the organisation did not want to alienate individuals, but that “We are not trying to make friends here, we are trying to make change, and unfortunately this is the way that change happens.”
However, if it ends up just as a conversation without any concrete action, then no, throwing tomato soup at paintings won’t save the climate. But in the defence of Just Stop Oil, one of their main targets was to get the world talking about fossil fuels. They clearly achieved that.
In hindsight, a lot of people’s perspectives changed after learning that the painting was unharmed. It shifted from “This is so dumb” to “Ohhh I get it now”. Yet it’s a conversation in itself that we only truly understood the point of the protest or activism after learning that the piece of art was unharmed. It speaks to the idea of how we all downplay climate change in our daily lives.
Will the conversation get us anywhere?
Just Stop Oil protester Miranda Whelehan went viral after her interview with Good Morning Britain. In the interview, she and her fellow activists were mocked by the commentators, who also criticised them for obstructing traffic and referred to their cause as “playgroundish.”
After the interview, Whelehan wrote an article for The Guardian and said, “My fear is that they will only understand the reality of the climate crisis when it is on the doorstep, perhaps when the floodwater is uncontrollably trickling into their homes, or when they can no longer find food in the supermarkets.” She also explained how, ironically, her interview became an almost flawless parody of the movie Don’t Look Up.
She continues on to say that “Civil resistance is really not about protests or marches, it is about responding to a situation beyond our worst nightmares. At Cop26, the people who run things effectively confirmed that they were going to let billions of the poorest people on this planet die in order to keep business as usual going. Well, to that we say no.”
It’s disheartening because, whether you decide to throw canned tomato soup at a painting or go on television to discuss climate change, it seems that protestors or activists cannot win. It is as if no matter the demonstration or the conversation, or even how the conversation is set, it’s either never enough, or too much.
Just a few days ago, climate protesters threw mashed potatoes at a Monet painting in Potsdam, Germany. Two activists from the Last Generation organisation approached Monet’s “Les Meules” at the Barberini Museum in Potsdam and dumped mashed potatoes on the artwork. The group has urged the German government to take immediate action to safeguard the planet and cease using fossil fuels. Again, the painting was unharmed.
The organisation wrote on Twitter, “If it takes a painting – with #MashedPotatoes or #TomatoSoup thrown at it – to make society remember that the fossil fuel course is killing us all: Then we’ll give you #MashedPotatoes on a painting!”
“While I understand the activists’ urgent concern in the face of the climate catastrophe, I am shocked by the means with which they are trying to lend weight to their demands,” museum director Ortrud Westheider said in a statement.
The concept is straightforward: the shock element is crucial. Without any form of shock factor, it appears that little to no public interest or concern has been developed towards Just Stop Oil and Last Generation’s causes.
It’s not just art
In July this year, six climate activists from Just Stop Oil stormed onto the Wellington Straight, the fastest point of the Silverstone track, and sat down during the beginning of the annual Formula 1 British Grand Prix.
In September last month, a man set his arm on fire during a break in a match between Stefanos Tsitsipas and Diego Schwartzman at the Laver Cup. He wore a shirt that read, “End UK private jets.”
“It came out of nowhere. I have no idea what this is all about. I never had an incident like this happen on court. I hope he is all right,” Tsitsipas said.
Yes, these are slightly different because they are downright dangerous. To put it in perspective, Formula 1 world champion Kimi Raikkonen had a horrible crash along the Wellington Straight which sent him sideways and into the wall. In an almost sick sense of irony, during the protests at the British Grand Prix, before the cars reached the Wellington Straight, a red flag procedure was queued due to a horrifying first lap incident that involved China’s first ever Formula 1 driver, Zhou Guan Yu. Had the cars been at racing speed by the time they got to the Wellington Straight, we can only imagine the terrifying scenes that could have ensued.
However, while it is undoubtedly reckless and risked lives including theirs, the idea that we’re much more interested in the conversation of how ridiculous these protests and activism are instead of the message they’re trying to get across still stands. We can sit here and judge their recklessness out of privilege, and while we can go on and discuss for hours how there are much better and safer ways to go about protesting against the oil industry, it literally just reiterates the fact that we constantly downplay climate change as just a discussion and not something that’s beyond urgent.
Questions, questions, questions
When Banksy partially shredded his iconic Balloon Girl in 2018, he did it to expose hollow consumerism and to willfully play along with it. As a result, the value of his artwork skyrocketed.
While it’s not the same, a familiarity can be traced. Does it matter more that a famous artwork could have been damaged than the rapid deterioration of our planet? It sounds almost ridiculous, we know. But it’s hard to deny that it gets you thinking properly over what genuinely matters in the end.
Yes, these artworks are a huge part of humankind in general. But where would humankind be without the planet? All these almost-too-cheesy questions you end up answering and thinking about is how we begin to move in the direction of change. Do we grieve the immense and more frequent floods we experience like we did at Notre Dame when it caught on fire? Do we raise money for natural disaster relief as quickly as the way billionaires immediately donated to restore Notre Dame? We already know the answers.
The thing is, we can’t really have a rubric for whether or not there’s a right way to protest. Because protesting in itself is a challenge to order and rigour. It’s a way for us to tangibly see and feel how we can bring about change. This is not a call to risk lives for the sake of protesting, nor is it a call to properly destroy priceless artworks. But it is a call to ask ourselves, at the end of the day, is the planet worth saving? Are we worth fighting for?
Featured Image: via Twitter/Just Stop Oil | Image description: Two activists in front of Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflower painting that is now smeared with tomato soup
