Just Stop Oil Activists Who Threw Tomato Soup at Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ Get Prison Time
Just Stop Oil Activists Who Threw Tomato Soup at Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’ Get Prison Time
Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland threw two cans of Heinz tomato soup at Vincent van Gogh's painting of sunflowers.
Judge Christopher Hehir told Plummer and Holland they “came within the width of a pane of glass of destroying one of the most valuable artworks in the world”
Meanwhile the people they are protesting are already destroying the planet which includes this artwork. And hey, that "pane of glass" is there to protect the artwork which it successfully did.
The judge's statement is so disingenuous, designed to deceive rather than to promote a realistic view of actions and consequences. They didn't throw a can at the painting and luckily the glass held, they splashed some soup, with no chance of piercing the glass and doing no damage to it, and if the pane of glass wasn't there they wouldn't have done it.
Damaging the frame is something he can complain about, but the painting was never in danger. There's definitely some political thrust to these overwrought and deceptive sentences the UK is giving to climate activists.
What, nobody died. It’s no big deal.
Poe's Law here, so I'm just gonna point out that yes, in fact plenty of people have died from climate change. Increasing intensity of storms, widening storm seasons, diminishing water supplies in formerly healthy tables, growing habitats of disease bearing insects, crushing heat waves and worsening cold snaps, elevated ocean levels and acidification, shallower mountain top snow melts, intensifying wildfires, and many more effects have killed people and will continue to kill more people as they continue to be ignored.
Notice how every headline talking about these protests makes it sound like they damaged the painting. Including this one.
And it's working, as you can see from the comments here.
Here's the Lady herself explaining her actions (which in no way damaged the painting).
Absolutely ridiculous that they're given any time at all.
EDIT a letter
I'm not giving twitter any more clicks, but sounds like it's worth watching.
Can they appeal and where do we donate to thier defense?
No way * Extraneous w in there changing the meaning of your post.
And yet the people ruthlessly pillaging the planet as we all plea for them to stop get to keep compounding their wealth while world leaders aid them. Fuck this world. The art won't matter when no humans are around to appreciate it.
I hope it's no more than 2 days in jail. Putting someone in jail for longer than the time it takes to clean up a foodstuff they threw at an inanimate object would be ludicrous and cruel wouldn't it?
Given the “sentences” given to the elite, I’m surprised this wasn’t a fine. But then again, these people aren’t the elite.
Some climate action activists in the UK recently got 5 year sentences. I'm worried for these people because even though they knew the risks of bashing up against the UK's absurdly draconian anti-protest laws (and props to their bravery), the recent sentences were shocking and felt like another level of escalation beyond what most people were expecting.
"Ludicrous and cruel" is certainly the description for it
I know it’s not popular in this community, but we really need to understand that protest takes on many forms, and the Stop Oil protests have - for whatever reason - focused on a very unhelpful form.
We could talk about the reasons for that particular focus, or the other forms of protest that would be better.
Unpopular opinion. This is a terrible way to protest
Climate change is THE issue. I have seen first hand glaciers disappear over the last 10 years. Protests need to happen.
However endangering and/or damaging irreplaceable historical objects and art is not going to win you any friends and is not the way to protest. These guys look like loons to the general population. Most people would consider them vandals rather than protesters
Yeah, but, unfortunately,
- Your opinion is not unpopular, it's the most common one
And
- This is a proven, and wonderfully effective way to protest. Getting the media to report on things at all, is an enormous, and repeatedly researched driver of discussion and awareness. And the climate emergency is not acted upon enough, and the continued criminal actions of the Oil industry are also painfully underreported.
I wish from the bottom of my heart this natural sense of justice of yours was the way to solve these issues, but those rich fucks are literally relying on, and fanning the flames of this mental pitfall, to keep people more passive on this issue.
Data and science says this protest, just like most other protests, works.
Protest in any way you see fit, different kinds of protest "work" on different people and structures. Just go and actually participate in whichever you believe in.
TBH if they had damaged the painting I'd be pissed, but if oil execs started suddenly falling out of windows Moscow style I really wouldn't care. I don't know if your opinion is actually unpopular, but I agree with it
The painting was never in any danger of being damaged, and I'm certain these protesters knew that ahead of time.