Two young Just Stop Oil supporters have been hooked on a painting by JMW Turner at the Manchester Art Gallery.
It is the third time this week that supporters of the group, who are calling for a government-imposed moratorium on new oil and gas extraction projects, are sticking to major works in UK galleries.
On Thursday they were glued to the frame of a painting by Vincent van Gogh at the Courtauld Gallery in London. On Wednesday they did the same with a play by Horatio McCulloch in Glasgow.
“The youth of the world no longer have literally anything to lose, we are a sacrificed generation,” said Paul Bell, a 21-year-old Birmingham physics graduate, one of those who got hooked on the Thomson wind harp. . , a 1809 landscape showing a view of the Thames from Richmond, London.
“There are millions of people in food and fuel poverty, our wildlife and our landscapes are devastated and we face famine and war. Our government is accelerating chaos by allowing new fossil fuel infrastructure. We will not be left behind and we will let this bad tracking continue.
“No one has a free pass. By refusing to use their power and influence to help end this madness, the art establishment is complicit in the genocide. Directors of art institutions should ask the government to stop all new oil and gas projects immediately “.
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Just Stop Oil’s latest actions follow an interruption campaign against the Midlands and southern England oil terminals this spring. Hundreds of activists took part in intrusions, blockades and tunnel protests in an effort to paralyze oil distribution in south-east England and London.
This campaign was preceded by a series of field invasions at high-profile football matches, where activists hooked up or tied themselves to goal posts to try to interrupt the game.
A Just Stop Oil source hinted that the art gallery’s actions were intended as a way to keep the focus on the group’s cause before further action in the coming weeks and months.
On July 27, the group plans a mass protest in London in collaboration with Jeremy Corbyn’s Peace and Justice project, under the banner: “We all want to stop oil.”
“It is not a switch [in strategy]; is to mobilize actions for young people, to do something of great projection, a bit like the sports actions we did “, said the source. “We’re just changing that a little bit with small-scale high-impact actions. But then we intend to mobilize for massive actions by the end of the year.”