Episode 1: The Splat

It was a cold October morning in 2022. Two young people walked into London's National Gallery. They were careful not to draw attention to themselves, because they weren't at the museum to look at art. Once inside, they moved past security and they started searching. They made their way past Renaissance paintings and the Impressionists all the way to Room 43. And there it was, the iconic still life. Van Gogh's Sunflowers. Vincent Van Gogh is one of the most famous Impressionist painters in the world. And Sunflowers may be his most famous work. Some even say it was his favorite. Van Gogh painted it in 1888 in France. And for almost 100 years, it's been hanging right here on the walls of the National Gallery. People come from all over to see it, but that day, our two visitors were here for a different reason. They walked up to the painting and removed their coats. And then, they did something shocking. The two of them, Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland, were matching white t-shirts. Each held a can of Heinz tomato soup. And they opened the cans and hurled the bright orange liquid right onto the painting. Then they took bottles of quick drying glue out from inside their shoes and underneath their shirts. They smeared it on their palms and then each pressed a hand to the wall. Kneeling down, they faced a shocked crowd. Phoebe started shouting. What is worth more? Art or life? Is it worth more than food? Worth more than justice? Are you more concerned about the protection of the painting or the protection of our planet and people? Of course, by this point, multiple people started filming on their phones. In videos, you can actually see Phoebe's the one shouting. They have bright pink hair, so they're pretty hard to miss. Anna, who's kneeling next to them, stares defiantly. Each has an arm outstretched in front of them, holding a soup can. Millions of people are dying in one's suits, wildfires and severe drought. We cannot afford new oil and gas. Security guards quickly cleared the room and forced people to stop filming. Eventually, the police arrived. And once they figured out how, exactly, to unglue them, Phoebe and Anna were arrested. Soup has a new meaning in the art world this morning. Climate change demonstrations, vandalized, a famous vincenzo. Oh, yeah. Barrios manifestantes. Ecologistas a rojaron su pade tomate. Two protestors have been arrested after throwing super Vincent van Gogh's famous sunflower painting. We at Akada, con sopa de tomate, voceis vitam. Climate activist scene on video throwing a can of soup. This is an infantile vandalism. At least people should say, "Senior, you offer a lot." And this, it van goes sunflowers painting and then gluing themselves to a wall, appearing for today. The two played not guilty. Millions of people all over the world heard about the now infamous soup incident. You might remember it, too. Or at least you'd recognize it if you saw a photo. It got some people very excited. Others were kind of confused and it definitely pissed a lot of people off. It turns out that's exactly what Phoebe and Anna meant to happen. Their scandalous attack on the painting wasn't an act of insanity or anarchy. They had a clear plan. Get the world's attention and demand real action on climate change. Phoebe and Anna are members of the Climate activist group Justop Oil, which is been performing stunts like this all over the UK. Tonight, climate activists are telling the public to expect more disruption in the coming weeks. The warning. Their actions have caused headaches for the government, for the police and, you know, for everyday people, too. So, you know, we see people on bridges on gantries. It's a huge distraction to people who are trying to drive safely. And they've even inspired copycat protests around the world. She rests behind protective glass and for good reason. Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa targeted by protesters. Did you know howling soup at the 16th? They want the government to stop licensing new oil, gas and coal projects, hence the name, Just Stop Oil. These are ordinary people who are doing outrageous, often dangerous stunts that have gotten them labeled as "crazy" or landed them in prison. Because they believe it's the best way to save the planet. Or at least, they think it's better to try something that seems ridiculous than to do nothing at all while the world is literally on fire. But even if you think you know what happened and why, there's a lot more to this story than meets the eye. So in this series, we're pulling back the curtain and going inside a group that has captivated the media and puzzled outsiders. We'll stunts this controversial "make a difference" and who's actually "crazy" here. I'm Alessandra Ram and I'm Samantha Ultman. This is Sabotage, a production from Good Luck Media, the first studio for climate. Well, we're headed into the National Gallery and it's pouring rain. We're walking by this delightful looking Christmas market. Yes. Wow, it's picking up. I think we should hurry. Oh my god. Okay. What do we know what room this is? This is the main floor gallery. This is the Sun Lean Room. So it's been a year since the suit and we're in London, where it all began at the National Gallery. Are you more of a manne or a monice? Manne. I love manne. Hey. I like that question. Danzena, what about you? Um, I don't know. I do like Monet. Does that room want to be? I think it's normal. Maybe. I don't know. That baby is scary. He's got a, it's like they put an adult's face in a baby head. This is Samantha. We're here reporting on the story together. We actually met years ago at Wired Magazine in San Francisco when we were just starting out in journalism. We were thrilled to be making barely any money to cover our rent. And there were a lot of inside jokes about office politics. You know how it is, working in your 20s. And then we moved on to bigger jobs. Sam became an editor, overseeing climate coverage, and investigations into some of the biggest names in tech. While I traveled the world as a documentary producer, reporting from places like Puerto Rico, Thailand, the US-Mexico border, and you won two Emmys and two murros. Oh, it's alright. Can't forget about those murros. No, you should let people know. Street cred. So we've been friends for a decade, but this is actually the first time we've worked on a story together. So right up here, we're going to be the rooms that we're looking for. So the Velasquez is one of them. That's in a different room. And then go. Yeah, so they're going to be in that room. Room's 38 of 45. I think we're looking for 43 pieces. Yeah. Do you remember the first time you heard about the soup? I have to admit, the first time I saw anything about it, it was a meme on Instagram. And I was confused. So I went and googled it and started reading news articles about it, and I did not understand what was going on. And memes aren't the most reliable news source. And I remember my initial reaction. I was distressed. I thought to myself, come on, we already know that there is a climate crisis going on. I don't understand how destroying a precious cultural artifact is going to help anything. Maybe I was confused because the initial news coverage I read, and I'm not just talking about memes, it didn't really get into what their demands were at all. Which is weird because their demand is literally in their name. Just stop oil. Here's Phoebe again at the museum. Millions of people are dying in monsoons, wildfires, and severe drought. And the more we looked into the story, the more interesting and surprising it became. It was really juicy. But everyone else, they just seemed to be missing the point. Which is how we got here in the first place. Yeah, see, a lot of climate stories are very paint by numbers. Before you even start, you can guess how the end. I found that really frustrating because predictable stories, they don't engage people. It's true, I have grappled with that throughout my career. So much of my reporting dealt with climate change in some way like Monsanto's agrochemical operation in the Caribbean, or how Nestle makes billions bottling water for free, or of course migration from Central America to the US. These are all people trying to adapt to major changes around them. And people don't seem to realize that most stories are actually climate stories these days is true. And the media really needs to adapt to that reality, right? What we need are thrilling stories that reflect the real urgent experience of living with climate change. Stories where climate's a character instead of an issue. And Sam, I knew you were also frustrated by how limited climate storytelling can be. Definitely. So one afternoon on my backyard porch, do you remember? I remember. I got a semi-nice bottle of wine and I made a very basic cheese plate and asked you to leave your job as an editorial director at Box to do something really hard with just me for no money. When you said yes on a Zoom call a few weeks later, I actually burst into tears. I mean, what an honor. I don't think you even cried during your wedding vows. That's true. I didn't. The tears sealed the deal for me. I was ready to do something that in some ways felt more intimidating than a marriage. We were going to start a climate media company at a moment where it felt like everyone I knew in media was freaking out about the future of media. I mean, when are they not? It is a constant freak out. But in some ways, it is easier to start something completely new than to try to remake something that already exists, right? So that's how good luck media was born. Around the same time, across the pond in the UK, another group of people were frustrated by the lack of action around climate change. Oh, that's to me this. What do you achieve by attacking things people hold dear? Like works of art, like statues. What do you achieve by that? Honestly. Yeah, you've asked me a very reasonable question. So we've been disrupting the art galleries. We've been disrupting football matches. We've been disrupting the M25. And we're saying the media is not doing their job properly and they're not telling you the truth about what's coming down the line. But there are ways of doing it that can avoid tens of thousands of people having their lives completely disrupt. Just weeks ago, a third of Pakistan was underwater. The reins have failed in Somalia for the fifth year in a row, meaning mothers cannot feed their children. Yes, but you know that and we covered that. We had correspondence out there. There is a COP27 conference you may have been covering it, but the media has failed to make the political change. I know we've got politics has failed us. I'm 28. This is the 27th COP conference. So what has happened every single year? The emissions of risen and risen and risen. If you were doing your job properly, everyone would be out on the street. This is Indigo Rumbolo, one of the founders of Justop Oil. Before starting it with activists Roger Halim, she was part of Extinction Rebellion. That's another climate group that's been involved in pretty high profile actions in the US too. And a few weeks before we arrived in the UK, her house was rated by police and she was arrested. It wasn't the first time though, was it? So you've been arrested 15 times. Yeah, that's a lot. So in your mind is it sort of just part of the job now? You'll probably be arrested more than 15 times. That's what it sounds like. Yeah, I've no intent to stop until we get that demand one. And a demand as big as no new oil and gas means you've got to get creative to get people's attention. You know, we don't just want to disrupt sporting events. We also want to disrupt a different group of people in a different part of society. You know, art is a whole religion unto itself, isn't it? It was Indigo who helped come up with the idea to throw soup on the sunflower's painting. This Super Idea came out and also people were saying, "Whoa, that's really weird. The onlyest world of people don't know what's going to go on but people go, "That's really weird, don't do that. That's just a bit off." You know, we're like, "I'll go for it anyway because we've got to try something new." And then it just goes viral. So why did those types of actions upset people so much? I will let you know that it is still a myth to me, but what's clear is that it works. I mean, it did work because they got worldwide coverage and now a year later we're here in London wandering through the rooms of the National Gallery asking about a painting, a protest, and a can of soup. Do you know if Van Gogh's sunflower is that condus flavor? Yes, it's on display. Oh, 23. So you go for it here. I'm going for it. 32 right. 43. Okay, so it wasn't damaged. That was a year ago. We can't even talk about it, but yeah, it's on show. Everything is okay. Everything's back. Great room 43. Okay, cool. Because there's so many rooms. We're waiting this one already. We don't have the best senses of direction and we wanted to hear the staff gossip. So we decided to see if the guards would talk to us about it. Excuse me? Can I ask you a slightly odd question? Were you here when the incident happened with that painting? Yes, yes you were. Yeah, I wasn't in this room, but I was in the middle of the desk. Was it crazy? Yeah, it was just a letter and it was coming to course trouble. The couple of days, time to stew, threw it over the painting. But it wasn't damaged. Yeah, no, it wasn't that. It just got the blast off of the top. Right. So here's the thing. Van Gogh's painting valued somewhere between 40 and several hundred million dollars. Wasn't actually damaged. It was protected by glass, which Phoebe, Anna and the other members who pitched the attack knew all along. But most people did not know that. Hence the freak out. So they talk about this institution in particular. They're stuck to your thinking they can, well, stop all production, which they're not. That must cause a lot of frustration. Yeah, yeah, they caused a lot of trouble. Yeah, yeah, and we had them first world. They came and glued themselves to one of the frames as well. Super glue. A lot of CFS can be 5 gauge and do ambulance service to peel off. I can't imagine. Because it's like this room in particular is just so crowded. So that just must have been crazy. But it wasn't the only crazy moment to happen in the museum. And a couple of weeks ago we had another couple of them came in with hammers. Yeah. And smashed into glass or into the juice. And that was the. Yeah, Valesquez. The Velasquez. Okay, okay. That's right. When we get back, the crazy plan that almost didn't happen happens again. [Music] Just one week before Sam and I made it to London in the fall of 2023, Justop Boyle targeted another famous painting in the National Gallery. This time it was won by the renowned Spanish Baroque artist, Diego Velasquez, his rocbe venus. It depicts the Roman goddess of love and beauty. She's lying on a bed, her hair is swept up, and her backs turned away from the viewer. She's gazing into a mirror that her son, Cupid, is holding in front of her. She looks great. [Music] Women, do not get the blow by Valesquez. It is time for these and not words. This is Hanan Emmer. She and another Justop Boyle member, Harrison Donnelly, smashed the rocbe venus' glass protective cover repeatedly before pleading for an end to new oil and gas. We talked to her in London just two weeks after her arrest. At a protest near the London Eye. How long have you been out of jail? Oh, so yeah, the last time I was in a holding cell was. The two weeks ago? The last time. Yes, been a few times. To twice. I've been arrested twice. Probably more to come. Hanan is a 22-year-old university student studying computer systems and robotics. And the smashing was her second big public disruption. Yeah, she was arrested the first time for bursting on stage during a production of Les Mises in London's West End. Just a month before we got to town. [Music] But this second action was even more deliberate. More than a hundred years ago, the very same painting that Hanan and Harrison targeted played a starring role in another activist's protest. one that cemented in British history with Mary Raleigh Richardson, a famous British suffragette. In 1914, she entered the National Gallery, armed with a meat cleaver and slashed Velasquez's rope-be-veeness multiple times. And a hundred and ten years ago, the painting was not protected by glass. And then I think about all the rehearsals that we did, I completely missed the spots I was supposed to hit, by the way. I mean, the first where you were going to hit the glass. We wanted to align it with what the suffragette did. So, I'd align it with the slashes I missed. Someone said they were never going to play darts with me ever. Richardson was a journalist, fighting for women's suffrage. At the time, her friend and fellow suffragette, Emily in Pankhurst, had been arrested and imprisoned. She argued that the anger over the destruction of Velasquez's venus, the most beautiful woman in mythological history, was hypocritical, enlighted the mistreatment of real-life women like Emily. So, just-up oil protesters following in the footsteps or slash marks of the suffragettes make sense. There are another wildly unpopular group demanding political change with a clear strategy, provoke outrage, get arrested, force the change. It took time, like a lot of progress does. Women in Britain didn't fully get the vote until 1928. And even though Hanan was trying to pay homage to the suffragettes when she targeted the painting, she missed the exact spots, which is kind of funny. The reason I miss is because it's like, one minute you're fully consciously, you're even like too conscious, you're paranoid, you think everyone knows what you're about to do. And then the next, it's almost like a blackout, and the next you're doing the action, and it's like, I'm no longer myself. I am a message, I am a cry for help. I, you know, that's what it felt like, you know, it was. And we found out the activists actually rehearsed these big protests, given how much can go wrong in the moment. I'd say we were planning it. I don't know if legally, I think I could say, just, but there is a bit of, like, organisation behind it, and, and did you know Harrison. So I didn't know Harrison, we met on the day, like in person, we met on the day. We'd like kind of obviously a few zooms. But like, that's my problem for life as well now, you know, probably trauma-bonded love Harrison, such a sweet soul. Still, we wondered how much Hanan was influenced by Phoebe and Anna's decision to throw the soup. So the soup happened like before I'd got myself involved, and I just thought it was genius. If you don't think any one of those artists, whether it's Van Gogh, whether it's Victor Hugo, if you don't think those artists would agree with what we're doing, then I think you've missed the point a little bit. Why do you think it pisses people off so much? Because art is a scapegoer. When you are upset, and life is shit, you, am I not swear, sorry, I'm not lying. Okay, cool. And life is shit, you know, what do you do? You stick on a film, you go to a gallery, you watch a play, and things are really bad at the moment, and things are really bleak. So I think, you know, when people feel like their escapism is attacked, then, you know, they're rightfully pissed off. Hanan called back to Richardson's exact words in that room 110 years earlier. You know, what I said was just like a reflection of what the suffragette said, if you know, "D's not words." And also women didn't get the vote by vote, and like that, to me, is like so powerful, and it's so, it shows that like the system is rigged. But even if Hanan and Harrison saw themselves like the suffragettes, you know, activists in a rigged system, many people don't see it that way. We wanted to explore the question of why people think targeting art is going too far when you're trying to save the planet. So we called Amy Woodson Bolton. She's a professor at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, and she's incredibly knowledgeable about British history, art, and museums. Well, let me say it confirmed much of what I think as I study the history of museums, which is just that they are one of the kind of few really public spaces that many people think of really as almost sacred spaces. Because museums are so important in our culture, because they hold this kind of unique place where we've all agreed that these are valuable objects, I think they do make for powerful places of protest, and they have been used for protest as long history of protest in museums. She's right. In 1974, for example, an artist spray painted the words "kill lies all" in giant red letters on Picasso's "Gernica" at the moment. He was protesting war crimes committed by US soldiers in Vietnam. More recently, in 2019, a group staged a "dian" at the Louvre to protest the "Saclar family" and their role in the opioid crisis. And of course, street artist Banksy shredded his own piece "Girl with Balloon" at a 2018 Southern Bees auction. It was a commentary on art and capitalism, but it may have been more spectacle than protest. And side note, the shredded version is now worth over 25 million. Hmm. Is just up oil radical or the actions they taking radical? When you think about them in the scheme of history and protest? It's such an interesting question, because in so many ways, they're not particularly radical, right? I mean, they're like throwing soup at paintings in a museum. They're not blowing things up. They're not, you know, they're not using violence. And yet, the kind of perception of violence, I think, is very interesting. This was the scene of the crime. Yeah. If you want to say that. Yeah. I'm sure the museum does. So, after walking around the National Gallery for what felt like a long time, we finally found Room 43. Ironically, it was really close to the museum entrance. And it was packed with visitors. People love Van Gogh. This is the painting we're seeing the most selfies. Oh, yeah. Yeah. This is one of the most crowded rooms we've been at in the gallery. And there it was, Van Gogh's sunflowers. By now, Sam and I had watched the video of the soup getting thrown on the painting too many times to count. So, to be in the room where it happened was sort of strange, but not in the way we expected. I don't know how to describe it, but this feels almost anticlimactic, because it's just like nothing ever happened here, you know. A year after all the outrage, Van Gogh's beloved painting hung in the same spot where Anna and Phoebe threw soup on it. This painting though looked as though nothing had ever touched it. People were even bumping into each other to take photos of it, like it was a celebrity. Van Gogh was unappreciated during his lifetime. He only became famous when people learned the story of his life and his struggles with mental health. Today, sunflowers is considered a masterpiece. And for art like this, people feel connected. They feel protective of it. And that was true of the folks we spoke with as they were leaving the gallery that day. We asked if they'd heard about the protest and what they thought about it. We're a climate-focused studio from the US and we're doing a story about art and protest. So we're just wondering if you had heard about the recent protests at the National Gallery. Just up well. Well, to attack a work of art, me is appalling. So yeah, I have a lot of sympathy, but I don't approve of the method really, but how you get that message across, I'm not sure. What I thought their action was just disgusting, you know, they really, really, really, they damaged the cause of environmentalism hugely. It was without sense, without caring, without love of art, they were just being fucking destructive. To do that to something so gorgeous, and so wonderful, I think it is contradictory to what they're trying to do. Was the painting protected by glass? Well, it was protected by glass. Right. What it's, if the painting wasn't damaged, I can understand that it was a statement. The problem is you've got to somehow do it without having the label of a fangirl attached to you. And that's the problem. If you try to promote your cause by targeting something that is seemingly unrelated to climate, and if it's something people are so attached to, you are going to provoke outrage. But if you're quiet and polite about it, no one's going to care, much less notice. And that's why Just Up Oil does what it does. When we try to go to like the fossil fuel company, you'll we go to the government or whatever, like it doesn't get coverage, it doesn't get picked up. It's only one you like disrupts the system that we get a conversation about it. In order to get millions of eyeballs, you have to do something that is disruptive and transgressive, because otherwise no one pays attention to you. That's exactly what point is, in this, there's a motion attached. Nobody cares. It has to be something where there's a motion attached. People complain about the soup, you know, soup on sunflowers. One of the questions I like to counter with is, "How many climate protests can you name from the last few years?" Phoebe Plummer and Anna Holland were just 21 and 20 at the time of the protest. They pleaded not guilty to criminal damage charges. For now, they're both forbidden from entering an art gallery, or this is crazy, even carrying glue. One of the reasons we came to London actually was to find them and convince them to speak with us. Yeah, but both Phoebe and Anna are pretty reluctant to talk to the media. Coverage hasn't been great. Both of them identify as queer and non-binary, but most news articles misgender them. On top of like calling them eco-terrorists, I know, right? And Anna has described a lot of these media appearances as "to humanizing". Many of them just end up turning into arguments, like this one. How much more expensive do you think fuels going to be Phoebe? How is it related to stopping oil to throw soup over a painting in a gallery? How is it helping the poorest people in my country? I understand that right now fossil fuels are subsidised 32 times more than renewables, even though renewables are 9 times cheaper. Would you rather your bills were £3,500 or £400? I would rather that you and your friends stopped wreaking havoc in the city of London. I'd rather you stop throwing soup over paintings. I understand your anger. I really do. I really understand your frustration. I'm angry and frustrated, but I really want you to understand that myself and Phoebe are acting out of fear. You know, we are terrified. You shouldn't be my darling. You shouldn't be. You have been fed a load of nonsense. You're going to live way past 25. You should be living the best life you can. Jump, jump, jump. And your wings will unfurl on the way down. We should be living in a gallery. Not standing throwing soup in a gallery. Wow. So condescending. Right? Anyway, Phoebe and Anna's viral soup stunt catapulted just up oil into the global spotlight and kicked off a conversation about what to do when you feel no one is listening to you, when you're faced with a crisis as big as climate change. But we learn there's a real strategy to these stunts. In fact, the way this entire group operates is more complicated and surprising than you might expect. Even now as we're recording this, we don't know how this story is going to end. But we do know how it started. And that was when I read One Line, buried in a Guardian article about climate protests and who was funding them. It's a family dynasty with quite the reputation. Sometimes as a journalist, you just get a feeling about a story. You know when it's the one. And I got that feeling when I learned just off oil is funded by the Climate Emergency Fund, which was started by Eileen Getty, the daughter of Sir Paul Getty, a major benefactor of the National Gallery. Oh look at some, if Sir Paul Getty, the second. Hi, just keep walking. They're right as we walk through the door. They have a bust of Sir Paul Getty the second right in the entry. His father and Eileen's grandfather was Jay Paul Getty, who at one point was the richest man in the world. And he made his astounding fortune from oil. Just like you heard us do, Phoebe and Anna actually entered the National Gallery through the Getty Entrance. That's right. The Getty's gave so much money to the museum over the years that there's an entire entrance named after them. In other words, Eileen Getty's oil fortune funded an anti-oil protest in a museum that has her family's name all over it. How's that for a twist? On the next episode of Sabotage, we meet the Getty's, a dynasty synonymous with oil, art and scandal. And we learn more about the rebel who's trying to make up for the last 100 years. Sabotage is an original production from Good Luck Media. The show is hosted, reported and executive produced by Samantha Altman and me, Alessandra Rom. Our producer is Hannah Chin. Our consulting senior producer is Rebecca Sananas. Our field producer is Andy Fallon. Our audio engineer is Eric Gomez with original music by Daniel G. Harmon. With executive producers Adam McKay and Stacey Roberts steel, produced in partnership with Yellow Dot Studios. Sabotage is represented by Drew Welborn from WME and Andrew Randoni from Bala in Los Angeles. Our show art was designed by Luisa Bettincourt, special thanks to Nick Cardin of Cardin Audio. Good Luck Media is an independent journalism studio where climate is the main character. We'll see you next week.