A spokesman for the environmental group Stop Fracking Around told The Canadian Press that two activists poured maple syrup on Carr’s painting “Stumps and Sky,” which is on display at the gallery. Don Marshall, speaking for the environmental group, said the protest action at the museum aims to focus public attention on the global climate emergency. He said protesters are demanding an end to the Coast GasLink Pipeline project, which is under construction from Dawson Creek to Kitimat on BC’s north coast.

A SECURED CONDUCTOR

The pipeline has been a source of controversy in BC. for years and sparked nationwide protests and blockades in early 2020 in solidarity with Wet’suwet’en First Nation hereditary chiefs who oppose the project. Anti-pipeline protests have continued throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, including a rally in Vancouver in August. A construction site along the pipeline route was also the site of a violent attack in February this year. While no anti-pipeline group has claimed responsibility for this incident, some politicians have tried to link it to a recent arson fire in Smithers, BC that involved several emergency vehicles – including RCMP cruisers – with opposition to Coast GasLink.

ACTIVISTS TARGETING ART

Saturday’s incident at the art gallery comes in this context, but also in the context of recent climate protests in galleries and museums around the world. Last month, activists from the Just Stop Oil group poured soup on Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers at London’s National Gallery, a move the group said was intended to make people think about what is more valuable: a painting or the planet. Marshall told The Canadian Press that protesters are targeting artworks around the world because too little is being done to stop the deadly progress of human-caused climate change. “It’s just a matter of trying to get the public and especially our leaders to really respond to the climate emergency that Canada has declared,” Marshall says in an interview. “That’s the logic behind it.” A statement from Stop Fracking Around identified one of the art gallery protesters as 19-year-old Erin Fletcher, who the group said was “prepared to be taken into custody” by the Vancouver Police Department. “We are in a climate emergency,” Fletcher said in the statement. “We are taking this action after Memorial Day to remind ourselves of the countless deaths that have occurred, and will continue to occur, due to the greed, corruption and incompetence of our leaders. When we exceed two degrees Celsius, the global average rises temperatures, we are looking at death and starvation on an unprecedented scale due to inaction on climate change.”

In an email, the VPD told CTV News Vancouver that it received a call from gallery staff Saturday afternoon “after two women entered the gallery and put maple syrup on a painting and then posed for a third person who appeared to be taking pictures or video. “ “We believe we know who the women are and will conduct a full investigation,” police added. “No arrests have been made at this time.” The Vancouver Art Gallery issued a statement condemning the protest, which it called vandalism. “The Vancouver Art Gallery condemns acts of vandalism to works of cultural significance in our care or at any museum,” said Anthony Kiendl, the gallery’s director and CEO, in the statement. “A central part of our mission is to make spaces for communication and ideas safer. As a non-profit charity, we are an institution of memory and care for future generations. We support the free expression of ideas, but not at the expense of suppressing ideas and artistic expressions of others or otherwise prevent people’s access to those ideas’. VAG added that its staff do not believe there will be any permanent damage to the panel. With files from The Canadian Press