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The 19-year-old social activist Phoebe Plummer who has now become an internet sensation after a video in which she was seen throwing tomato soup at Vincent Van Gogh's 'Sunflowers' painting at London's National Gallery has said that she along with others will continue such efforts to stop climate change.
After her stunt, the Just Stop Oil activist faced a lot of backlash on social media for staging protests in London and across the country. "We are scared, we are angry, as a young person I am terrified I am gonna be denied to get the right to revolt, I am terrified I am going to live in constant fear of climate disaster, I am terrified of when I have access to food or clean water. Millions in the global south authority living in the realities in these phases," Phoebe told Reuters. "There've been messages of hate of course and there've been messages of support as well because people realise that this is a proportional act to a criminal government. The government said that this is an act of a criminal. I am not a criminal, I am a scared little kid trying to fight for that future," she added. In the video that has now gone viral over social media, Phoebe could be seen with another girl throwing canned tomato soup over the famed painting, and soon after, they tried explaining their actions. "You can expect to see us popping up, anywhere every single day and we will keep on escalating our actions until the government listens. One demand is the government immediately hold only fossil fuel licenses and we will keep engaging in these actions every single day until they meet that demand," Phoebe said. Van Gogh's Sunflower series includes some of his most celebrated pieces. Although he painted eleven of paintings in total, the seven that he did while he was at Arles in 1888-1889 are the ones that are most frequently mentioned. He had already painted the other five while in Paris in 1887. "Sunflowers" almost resulted in violence. A Belgian painter objected angrily in 1890 in Brussels to having his works shown beside "Sunflowers," calling Vincent a conman. When Henri Toulouse-Lautrec heard the derogatory comment, he issued a never-fulfilled duel challenge to the Belgian, which of course, never took place, as per vincentvangogh.org. The Just Stop Oil group has recently taken many public actions including spray-painting buildings orange and vandalising a King Charles III wax figure at Madame Tussauds with chocolate cake. Meanwhile, a Dutch court, on Wednesday, sent two protestors to prison for vandalizing Johannes Vermeer's painting 'Girl with a pearl earring'. According to CNN, the demonstrators, who are part of the campaign group Just Stop Oil Belgium, were each given sentences of two months, one of which was suspended. Three climate activists, on October 27, targeted famous Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer's masterpiece 'Girl with a pearl earring' with glue and other kinds of liquid. (ANI)
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