Environmental marketing campaign group Simply Cease Oil has taken its protests to the British Museum, dressing a statue of a Greek goddess in an orange excessive vis jacket, and displaying a speech bubble beside it bearing the phrase “simply cease famine”.
In a press release launched on its web site, the group says that at 10am immediately (25 October), two Simply Cease Oil protestors positioned a jacket on the life-sized marble statue of Demeter, which dates from 350BC-330BC. The British Museum has since confirmed that the statue was not broken, and that the gallery has remained open to guests.
A spokesperson instructed The Artwork Newspaper: “The British Museum respects different individuals’s proper to precise their views and permits peaceable protest onsite on the museum so long as there isn’t a threat to the gathering, workers or guests. This incident clearly breached our customer pointers, and put objects susceptible to hurt.”
In its assertion, Simply Cease Oil calls for that the UK work with others to finish the extraction and burning of oil, fuel and coal by 2030. The assertion references a latest open letter, signed by 44 specialists from 15 international locations, warning of the potential collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation, often known as Amoc, which brings heat to the northern Atlantic—and the doubtless “devastating” impression this could have on agriculture in elements of Europe.
A spokesperson for the group mentioned: “Famine or a world with out oil. What’s it to be? The local weather disaster is threatening our meals safety and these impacts will solely worsen till we cease burning fossil fuels.”
The assertion additionally highlights the impression of the local weather disaster on farming in England, and the onset of drought in Lesotho, Malawi, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe, the place the lack of crops and livestock has led to the declaration of a state of nationwide catastrophe.
“For those who assume famine solely occurs elsewhere, assume once more,” the spokesperson continues. “Our wealthy nation standing is not going to shield us from what’s coming. A collapse within the Atlantic ocean currents would destroy our capability to develop meals and you may’t eat cash.”
The motion is Simply Cease Oil‘s newest in a string of protests at UK museums. Earlier this week (24 October) the group dressed a statue of The Beatles, situated within the band’s house city of Liverpool, in the identical vests, this time accompanied by speech bubbles that learn “hey Jude, let’s simply cease oil” and “think about there’s no oil”.
Simply Cease Oil protestors on the Nationwide Gallery in London on 18 October
Courtesy of Simply Cease Oil
In the meantime final week (18 October), three Simply Cease Oil protestors unfurled a banner on the Nationwide Gallery in London’s exhibition Van Gogh: Poets and Lovers, in entrance of two of the artist’s Sunflowers work. The protestors have been calling for the discharge of Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, who have been jailed in September after throwing soup at Sunflowers (1888)—situated at the moment within the Nationwide Gallery‘s everlasting galleries—in October 2022.
