Days after vandalizing a Van Gogh painting for ‘climate change’, Just Stop Oil protestors have come to defend their actions in a video.
In a video, which later when viral on TikTok and Twitter, Phoebe Plummer could be seen making a passionate appeal. Plummer was one of the two climate activists, along with Anna Holland, who vandalized the Van Gogh painting. The video got 1.7 million hits on TikTok and 7.1 million views on Twitter since Monday.
In the video, Plummer says: “I want to make one thing perfectly clear, we did no damage to the painting whatsoever.” She admits that the protest looks like a “ridiculous action” when she watched the scene later. However, she reiterates her point: “We’re not asking the question, should everyone be throwing soup at paintings? What we’re doing is getting the conversation going so we can ask the questions that matter.”
On October 14, Plummer and Holland – members of Just Stop Oil – entered the National Gallery and threw soup on a Vincent van Gogh painting. They later glued their hands to the floor so as to avoid being removed. The two were later escorted by London police and eventually granted bail the same day. The gallery announced that the painting was not damaged by the action, though its frame did see some damage.
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Just Stop Oil performed the stunt to protest against various UK government policies. These include the large number of fossil fuel licenses granted by the new Liz Truss government, the significantly higher subsidies given to fossil fuels compared to renewable energy, and the relation between the current UK housing crisis and the cost of energy in the country. Just Stop Oil also announced that more, similar protests would happen in the future due to the press coverage this one received.
