LONDON: Environmental protesters threw tomato soup over Vincent van Gogh’s “Sunflowers” painting at the London’s National Gallery on Friday, in the latest “direct-action” stunt targeting works of art.

The gallery said the protesters caused “minor damage to the frame but the painting is unharmed”.

Protest group Just Stop Oil aims to end UK government approval for exploring, developing and producing fossil fuels, and has mounted a series of high-profile protests.

London’s Metropolitan Police said its officers arrested two protesters from the group for criminal damage and aggravated trespass after they “threw a substance over a painting” at the gallery on Trafalgar Square and glued themselves to a wall just after 11am. Police said they had unglued the protesters and taken them to a central London police station. The National Gallery said the two protesters “appeared to glue themselves to the wall adjacent to Van Gogh’s ‘Sunflowers’” and threw a “red substance” at the painting. The room was cleared of visitors and police were called, it added.

A video posted on Twitter by the Guardian newspaper’s environment correspondent Damien Gayle and retweeted by the eco-activism group shows two women wearing T-shirts bearing the slogan “Just Stop Oil” lobbing cans of soup at the iconic painting.

After glueing themselves to the wall, one of the activists shouts: “What is worth more, art or life?” “Are you more concerned about the protection of a painting or the protection of our planet and people?” she asks.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2022