The Soup and Potatoes Museum protest caused shock and confusion as well. “Embarrassing Confession: I Didn’t Know Climate Change Was Caused by French Impressionists” Scott Shapiro A Yale University professor said on Twitter. Conspiracy theories circulated about the activists’ motives, and both groups received support from the Climate Emergency Fund, a nonprofit to which oil heir Eileen Getty and director Adam McKay have donated heavily.
Stephen Duncombe, a professor at New York University and co-founder of the Center for Artistic Activism, a nonprofit that trains activists, said the focus of much commentary had cast doubt on the effectiveness of the protests. .
“Are they talking about food thrown into art, or how carbon-based fuels are wiping out life on Earth?” said Dr. Duncombe. “If the message gets across that activists are doing something crazy, is it going to serve a good cause?”
But Heather Albero, a lecturer in global sustainable development at Nottingham Trent University, said such high-profile actions were all but inevitable given the failure of traditional means of protest. It makes sense for her to target high-value art. Wealth and economy built on fossil fuels“We are in a moment where we need all the tools in the shed,” said Dr. Alberro. “If governments are more upset about throwing soup at paintings than investing in fossil fuels, it says a lot.”
Brian Zabcik, former organizer of the New York chapter of the AIDS activist group ACT UP, said the most powerful protests tended to have a clear connection to their targets. Participants in the civil rights movement raised awareness of segregation laws by breaking them. Greenpeace activists tracked whaling ships and nuclear facilities. PETA supporters threw paint on fur. ACT UP combats the stigma surrounding AIDS by staging mass “die-ins” and “kisses-ins”, disrupting scientific conferences and political events with fog horns and fake blood, marching, and banishing government offices. explained and paraded a likeness of Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Zavczyk, now the advocacy manager for the nonprofit Save Barton Creek Association in Austin, Texas, said he found it “a tricky one” to link climate change to Van Gogh. . Still, he said criticism always spiked with more confrontational protests, and that it wasn’t the best measure of success.ACT UP is now admired, but its tactics weren’t his 30 years ago. was often denounced.
Benjamin Sovacourt, professor of earth and environment at Boston University, says the most effective social movements use sustained, intense pressure over an extended period of time, and one measure of the success of an action is the amount of time it takes. While the museum’s protests were polarizing, he said, “At least we’re talking about it.”