That Meaningless Number: Van Gogh Soup Protestors Through Their Own Eyes (Part 2)

Part 1 of this story can be found here.

In confinement, Phoebe Plummer fumed. Why them? Why was theirs the only voice forced to demand action?

They didn’t like causing disruption to ordinary people, but with the government’s inaction, they saw no alternative. All they truly wanted was to go back to college and hang out with friends as if nothing was wrong…just not when the fate society loomed so uncertain.

“This isn’t what I should have to be doing in my twenties,” Plummer recalled from that moment, “But we’re forced to. Because if they keep pushing ahead with these fossil fuel licenses, I don’t have much beyond my twenties. If we don’t change now, we are going to live through societal collapse.”

Waiting to be released from the cell was more about being released from the purgatory of climate danger.

If only the government could just halt all new fossil fuel licenses. Then the disruption would end.

“One of the things we’ve gotten is ‘oh, jobless teens don’t have anything better to do with their time,’” Plummer explained, “I really have much better places I’d rather be than in that custody cell. But quite frankly, it’s the only place I can be.”

Holland’s solicitor (a legal representative) visited to the holding cell to discuss the charges. The representative officially informed them that the painting had not been damaged at all, which meant that criminal damage charges could not go to the high court. Only damages exceeding £5000 qualified…and the National Gallery has not affixed a value of any kind to the soup incident at this time.

Holland also officially learned that the painting was worth £86 million.

“So what?” Holland thought sardonically, “What exactly is one 86-million-pound painting good for when we have parents starving themselves to feed their children? I’m sure the NHS nurses using food banks are so thrilled that one 86-million-pound painting is OK.”

What a world, where art collecting millionaires could spend so much on a painting while regular people suffered. Where were the elites when it came to stopping fossil fuels?

“Essentially our cost-of-living crisis has been created by those rich people,” Holland realized, “By that upper class of people who can afford to put millions of pounds into one single painting into their home.”

Perhaps it was because the climate crisis would not impact them.

“They’re going to be fine,” Holland mused. “They’re going to be the ones who will get the food that we’ll be fighting over. They’re the ones who are going to have their energy that’s going to be siphoned out of our homes and given to them during blackouts…they don’t care about us. We’ve seen that time and time again with the way those billionaire oil tycoons are guiding our politicians, and the way they’re guiding our political sphere. They only care about how they can increase that meaningless number in their bank account.”

Following their release, Holland and Plummer learned a new valuation reported for the painting. Sunflowers was now appraised at £94 million. It seemed the activism had increased the value of the work by £8 million.

The museum could not confirm the total current value of the painting.

“As the National Gallery incident is now the subject of criminal proceedings, we don’t feel it would be appropriate to add anything more at this time,” wrote a press officer in a brief statement.

The official verdict is that there was “minimal damage to the frame”.

“I think the National Gallery owes us 8 million,” Holland chuckled.

“I definitely want a bit of that,” Plummer answered.

The painting was already back on display. It had been returned to the wall by 4:30pm on the day of the incident.

But while the moment had passed, the debate raged on.

Part 3 will be published on Thursday, November 10th.