Throwing food on art is not the way to raise climate change awareness
This tactic serves better as a distraction from the root reasons for activists’ actions
The climate is widely known to be variable. The steady increase of alarming patterns of climate change have grown to be one of the biggest concerns. An innumerable amount of tactics and efforts have been put into raising awareness and generating fruitful results by diligently working climate activists over the years.
A recent tactic was used by British activist organization Just Stop Oil, who tried to galvanize action on climate change by targeting famous artwork with food.
From chucking mashed potatoes at a Claude Monet painting to throwing cake on a wax-imitation of King Charles, gluing themselves to a 500-year-old copy of The Last Supper, and splashing tomato soup on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, this approach to environmental activism, claimed to be non-violent, is both brazen and inefficacious in garnering support for climate action.
Phoebe Plummer, one of the activists taken into custody for throwing soup at the Van Gogh in London’s National Library asked bystanders, “Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?”
In a viral video showing the British activist duo throwing soup on Van Gogh’s Sunflowers, Plummer is seen chanting-mid scene that their approach was deliberately “ridiculous” to get the coveted media attention to “ask the questions that matter.” Although this “ridiculous” action did not damage the glass-covered painting, it does not appear to be an effective path in advancing climate action.
Their action succeeded at making headlines around the world, but little did it draw attention to the climate concerns or “the questions that matter.” Perhaps the intention is good, but it’s being overshadowed by the non-detrimental disruption of the paintings, provoking questions about the unacceptable extent of the civil disobedience movement.
Instead of showing the activists in a glaring light as superheroes trying to reason a cause, this disruptive activism portrays them not only as the antagonists, but also as a self-centered group who are constantly trying to express their concern for depleting resources by wasting one of the most essential resources for survival: food.
While the soup tossers should be commended for their readiness to surrender their comfort for the global good, the question arises “why food?” They could have relied on any other substance to delineate their notion of choosing to be concerned between “protection of a painting or the protection of our planet.”
Call it their anger towards the irresponsible human activities contributing to the decreasing climate conditions or their concern for future generations, what is equally bizarre as choosing food is choosing to destroy paintings that vividly delineate their lack of respect for the passions, professions, and talents of other people.
There is no explanation for the glass-covered painting that caught all the wayward soup that would do justice for choosing to destroy a piece of art to compare the loss of climate resources.
Although it’s understandable when silent protests and civil tactics fail to draw desired attention, the climate activists have to take to grave measures to lodge their protests, their outrageous acts, under the garb of activism, have extensively failed at drawing attention to the real narrative and have, unfortunately, succeeded at shining light on everything they did wrong in practical implementation of their narrative.
