Environmental activists continue glueing protests at National Gallery
Environmental activists have continued their spate of glueing themselves to frames at the National Gallery in protest of forthcoming gas and oil projects.
On Monday (July 4th) activists glued themselves to Giampietrino’s ‘The Last Supper’ from circa 1520, and yesterday further protested acted out the same modus operandi by glueing their hand to the frame of John Constable’s 1821 masterpiece ‘The Hay Wain’.
The National Gallery in London is just one of many which have seen similar actions carried out in recent weeks as climate protestors look to change tact and make a point that so-called priceless artefacts seem to hold more value than, well, everything else that will be affected by climate change.
This was particularly apparent with the approach that they took with ‘The Hay Wain’ whereby they also pasted over part of the English landscape painting a reimagined scene featuring dying tries, a congestion of planes and the urban crawl of the city slowly encroaching.
Any minor damage has now been successfully restored which is a mark that these protests are not quite as intrusive as some outlets have made out. Nevertheless, naturally, galleries around the world are looking at ways to mitigate the protests.
One of the protestors from the Just Stop Oil movement, Hannah Hunt, said in a statement: “I’m here because our government plans to license 40 new UK oil and gas projects in the next few years. This makes them complicit in pushing the world towards an unlivable climate and in the death of billions of people in the coming decades.”
The organisation has decreed that they will not stop until the government makes a meaningful pledge that will terminate all planned oil and gas licenses.
