Visitors at Louvre look on in shock as Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece attacked by environmental protesters
Two environmental protesters have hurled soup on to the Mona Lisa at the Louvre in Paris, calling for “healthy and sustainable food”. The painting, which was behind bulletproof glass, appeared to be undamaged.
Gallery visitors looked on in shock as two women threw the yellow-coloured soup before climbing under the barrier in front of the work and flanking the splattered painting, their right hands held up in a salute-like gesture.
One of the two activists removed her jacket to reveal a white T-shirt bearing the slogan of the environmental activist group Riposte Alimentaire (Food Response) in black letters.
Of course WE know what this is about. We’re both reading the article (and most likely have a similar view of how important food insecurity is across the globe and in our own countries/states/provinces/cities). I’m not concerned about you or I getting the messaging. I’m question if the general public will get the messaging. The people who don’t know about food insecurity, or food waste, if they get the messaging. Even next door in Germany DW interviewed the communications head of the organization that protested and they couldn’t really point out how this was beneficial for their argument. They talked about wanting access to high quality food, so they mysteriously threw high quality food on the Mona Lisa? Wouldn’t a better protest of the same variety to have been throwing shit food at it? Or maybe blocking deliveries of crappy food to markets?
So here we are, on the internet, having a conversation about the Mona Lisa being hit with pumpkin soup. The messaging isn’t clear from the protestors and the demonstration just goes to show why we need better organization amongst people who realize this is an issue. We need clear messaging to relay to the every man. The person who maybe doesn’t experience it themselves, or who maybe doesn’t see how good insecurity has a wider impact on people and keeping social-economic classes in the same groups.
Challenge my viewpoint, prove to me how this protest has brought attention to their cause that’s meaningful rather than just notoriety to the Mona Lisa (that it didn’t already have), and that the every man is viewing this as a reason to help stop food insecurity.
DW video interview.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
DW video interview.
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For-profit, neoliberal media will never fairly cover any protest that may impact the profits of other neoliberals. It doesn’t matter what form the protest takes, nor what the protest is for.
It’s been that way ever since “Occupy Wall St”, when news anchors feigned carefully practised bewilderment and asked "But what are they protesting. Of course if you asked any of the actual protesters, they were happy to make it clear.
So they just didn’t ask.
Measuring any act of protest by metric of “the media covered it in a way that will bring the great unwashed on side” ensures that no protest will ever meet your standard. You may as well advocate that people don’t bother and just politely wait for the end of the world. You won’t even be alone in doing it.
Fortunately, those media companies don’t control every method of communication just yet, so we can discuss it on social media or look it up independently.
What we can’t escape is the endless protest policing, where people complain “that’s not how I would have done it” on social media.
So maybe it’s time for those people to unveil their perfect protest strategy that gets international attention, doesn’t inconvenience anybody, gets fairly covered despite the millions spent to prevent it and doesn’t require 3 wet wipes to fix.
My money is on their big reveal being “do fuck all and try and die of old age before it matters”.