Shea Gallagher | Student Life Editor
November 4, 2022
An 86-million-dollar painting got tomato soup hauled on it. The two protestors, both in their early 20s, were arrested and charged with criminal damage offenses in central London.
Senior Helene MacBeth stated, “I think it’s interesting they decided to target Van Gogh’s paintings when he’s literally dead and can’t do anything.”
Blowing up throughout social media, this movement was seen as dramatic, childish, and pointless. Although that is the typical response to the seeming destruction of a historically famous piece of art, the protestors had an intelligent thought process behind it.
The future of our climate and the cost of living were the driving forces behind the infamous reform.
Thankfully, Phoebe Plummer (on the left) announced the truth behind her actions. In a video posted throughout Tiktok and Twitter, Plummer revealed and ensured her audience knew that there was no damage done to the painting whatsoever.
Previous to her actions, research and planning went towards this social-media scheme. The protestors were actually aware of the glass protection layer in front of the painting, and that they weren’t truly exposing Van Gogh’s century-old art to citrus.
As it is easy to misunderstand the meaning behind the passionate protest, Plummer revealed, “We’re not asking the question, should everyone be throwing soup at paintings?” Instead, the motive for it was, “getting the conversation going so we can ask the questions that matter.”
The entire motive towards the near-demise of a masterpiece was following UK Prime Minister, Liz Truss’, the decision on granting fossil fuel subsidies, despite the opposing opinions of those living there.
As time progresses, and not much is seen being done about climate change to protect our future, Plummer admits that they are, “using these actions to get media attention to get people talking about this now and we know civil resistance works, history has shown us this works.”
One senior said, “it was a good way to put a message out there because it was talked about, but people are seeing it in a negative light.”
At the end of the day, the data, the science, and the evidence leaning toward our climate’s demise weren’t enough to get us talking about it. It took a group of young folks throwing a can of soup at a painting to finally be a topic of discussion. So the question begs: Were they really wrong for it?
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