Defacing art to stop climate change

From cake smeared on the “Mona Lisa,” tomato soup thrown on Van Gogh’s art and mashed potatoes tossed on Monet’s art – across the world, climate change protesters have been making statements about the plight of the world by defacing historic art pieces. Although these famous paintings were not damaged in the process, these acts have raised awareness and caused conversations about climate change’s environmental impact on our world.

Just Stop Oil, one of the many groups protesting through interaction with artwork, is demanding that the United Kingdom’s government cease to license the development and production of fossil fuels.

On Oct. 14, Just Stop Oil protesters threw soup at Van Gogh’s “Sunflowers.” On Oct. 24, they covered a waxwork model of King Charles III in chocolate cake. On Oct. 31, they sprayed orange paint on buildings in central London, and on Nov. 14, they covered the headquarters of the Barclays Bank in Aberdeen, Scotland, in orange paint.

Just Stop Oil activists have inspired other climate protests worldwide to participate in similar acts of civil disobedience. On Nov. 11, two climate activists in Vancouver threw maple syrup on an Emily Carr painting, and on Nov. 15, an Austrian climate activist group in Vienna sprayed Klimt’s “Death and Life” painting with oily black liquid.

All of these groups have been participating in nonviolent public acts of civil disobedience to encourage their prospective governments to be more environmentally conscious.

These protests have sparked conversations in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and many other U.S.-based news outlets as to whether or not this form of protest is effective and justifiable.

“I worry that by doing outrageous things like this, even if they are not destructive things, that [the protestors] are, instead of winning people over, turning them away,” said J. Bret Bennington, professor of geology and chair of the geology, environment and sustainability department at Hofstra. “I’m just not sure this is the best way to go about it.”

“These are museum-goers, some of these are normal people like you and me, and we are already convinced that climate change is something that needs to be addressed,” said Mary Anne Trasciatti, director of labor studies and professor of rhetoric and public advocacy at Hofstra. “We really need to convince the people in power to do something about it.”

Trasciatti and her class, RHET 138: Social Protest, discussed their concern about the protests’ effectiveness in relation to their direct audience. The class suggested alternatives that would reach authority figures to enact change.

“Disrupt an auction,” Trasciatti said. “Go to a private gallery where the people who are in a position to buy this kind of art: the people who really control the economic systems, the fossil fuel industry and politics and governments around the world. Go directly to them.”

“It puts a poor light on environmental activism. It portrays it as a joke because there are a lot of different ways that you can speak out against climate change without targeting art,” said Lucy Botelho, a junior sustainability and Spanish double major. Botelho is a member of LEAF, Hofstra’s Leaders for Environmental Action and Fellowship, who have been using more direct ways of protest on Hofstra’s campus.

“We are working with the Hofstra administration and Hofstra dining [services] and telling them what we want to see on campus,” said Iris Izbay, a junior biology major and the LEAF secretary.

Izbay said that in relation to the protests occurring worldwide, the actions are justified as to the cause they pertain to.

“The extremity of our discourse only reflects the extremity of the situation that’s happening,” Izbay said. “[Climate change] is going to be so much worse than a little bit of paint on some sculpture. What is worth more, a little bit of discomfort right now or incredible pain in the future?”