the latest technology from climate activists

What do Van Goghs have? sunflowers to do with oil? Well, the series of paintings is done with oil paint and there is such a thing as sunflower oil. But it has little to do with petroleum, you might say. Yet in mid-October, a group of climate activists from Just Stop Oil chose the fourth painting in the Sunflowerseries, which hangs in London’s National Gallery, to be smeared with the contents of a can of tomato soup. Then they glued their hands to the wall, explaining their action on rotating cameras.

Something similar happened in Potsdam in Germany on Sunday. Activists threw mashed potatoes on a painting by the French painter Monet: a still life of a pile of grain, in Monet’s hometown of Giverny. They also glued themselves to the wall. Incidentally, both paintings were not damaged; there was glass in front of the canvas.

The actions do not stand alone. Museums in the United Kingdom, Italy and Germany have been the latest battleground of climate protests in recent months. Since June, activists have glued themselves to artworks in Glasgow, London, Manchester, Rome, Milan and Florence, among others.

Dutch museums have escaped for the time being, but they are alert, they say to The watchword. A small copycat campaign seems to have already taken place. In talk show Jinek an activist who was a guest on this subject glued himself stuck to the table.

There was a lot of indignation about the actions in the museums, also within the climate movement, especially about the smearing of the paintings. Because why would you want to damage highlights from Western art history? And what do they have to do with climate change? An American art critic called the tomato soup action even ‘Taliban-esque iconoclasm’. The question is therefore whether the activists are not alienating more people than they are gaining for their cause.

Overshoot target

In the most basic sense, smearing paintings is an effective action, says professor of social change and conflict Jacquelien van Stekelenburg of the VU University Amsterdam: ‘In general, there is not much variation in the repertoire of activists. So when someone comes up with an innovation, it generates media attention. We succeeded here.’

That is also what Noelle Aarts, professor of socio-ecological interactions at Radboud University Nijmegen, thinks: ‘In this world you have to shout loudly to get attention. They know they are crossing borders. Coming to art is seen as barbaric.’

Attention is one thing, but that doesn’t mean it has a positive effect. Aarts: ‘You want to do something to generate sufficient attention, but if it is then more about the action itself than about the point of view, you can miss your target.’

thin cord

That’s exactly it activist’s dilemma, says Van Stekelenburg. If you are quietly demonstrating on the Malieveld, it generates less attention than blocking a highway with your tractor. But the more extreme an action, the greater the chance of a strong kickback. ‘It’s balancing on a very thin rope. During the farmers’ campaigns, the question was often: is this legal? It was therefore not about their substantive point.’

In a study Researchers from the University of Toronto and Stanford presented participants with different scenarios, from protests for animal rights to protests against Donald Trump. Their general conclusion: support among the common people can diminish if the protest is seen as too extreme.

Radical flank

This can have a side effect: extreme actions may create more sympathy for moderate activists, making them seem more reasonable, writes behavioral scientist Reint Jan Renes of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences. in a blog post: ‘So the soup-throwers are actually frontline soldiers who create a situation at the expense of themselves (because insult and social exclusion by society) in which others are given the opportunity to initiate the change that is needed after all.’

Van Stekelenburg also notices that radical flank effect as a tactic: ‘That is what we now clearly see in the climate movement. I think that’s why groups like Extinction Rebellion are quite happy with it.’

In addition, “extreme protests can be effective in putting direct pressure on institutions to change,” said the Stanford and Toronto researchers. In other words, maybe the general public doesn’t have to be the audience of the actions at all. They probably don’t care much if radical farmers alienate ordinary motorists by blocking a highway if it means that the government suddenly wants to sit down again.

Art or life?

The soup and mashed potatoes are also primarily aimed at the government. The London action came from the Just Stop Oil group. Their demand: no new oil and gas projects from the British government. In Germany it was Letzte Generation who daubed the Monet. The goal of these climate activists is more diffuse. In a statement, they called on the government to “finally take security measures to mitigate the effects of the catastrophe.” They also want society in general to think about the question: ‘Which is worth more, art or life?’

At the same time, you may wonder if their actions don’t contradict that. Because at first it may seem that they damaged the works of art, but both the Van Gogh and the Monet had glass in front of the canvas. Only the frames were slightly damaged. The indignant reactions therefore cooled down quite quickly. Van Stekelenburg: ‘The news value erodes. Then activists have to innovate again.’

Now that attention is still there, and that is a condition for any effective action, says Van Stekelenburg: ‘In this way you can influence public opinion, but the goal can also be to allow your movement to grow.’ In a tweet, Just Stop Oil claims to have struck a chord with millions of people.

When things go wrong for the activist groups, the actions are radical enough to alienate people from the climate cause, but not radical enough to make the moderate climate groups more reasonable.

Still, Noelle Aarts thinks that the activists will eventually gain sympathy: ‘The actions are a major indictment of politicians that take insufficient responsibility to really tackle the climate problem. That message is widely supported.’