Soup and sunflowers: the unwilling role of art history in climate activism
This seminar session explores the role that art history might play in understanding the targeting of works of art as a form of protest.
Soup and sunflowers: the unwilling role of art history in climate activism
08 May 2025, 18:00 – 19:00
About the seminar:
Targeting works of art is an increasingly familiar form of protest that – by its very nature – aims to provoke strong emotional responses and widespread media attention. This session explores the role that art history might play in understanding this particular protest tactic, from the cultural implications of specific targeted artworks to a visual analysis of widely circulated photographs of the actions, and the protests’ effectiveness within the wider climate justice movement. At the same time, this session will consider how a greater attention to image-making also risks abstracting (and distracting from) urgent issues of environmental and societal breakdown, and what is needed to avoid this.
The session will open with a conversation between Esme Garlake (PhD candidate, UCL History of Art) and Dr. John-Paul Stonard (art historian, author and curator), chaired by Jacob Badcock. Attendees will then be invited to contribute to the discussion.
This session will be the first in a series of three seminars dedicated to integrating art history within the existing framework of UCL Anthropocene. The seminar series aims to present and critique the efficacy of the tools and solutions that art history can bring to debates within the Anthropocene and their application beyond the university setting.
This event is being organised by Early Career Researcher Esme Garlake and is supported by the UCL Anthropocene initiative.
Esme Garlake
PhD candidate
History of Art department at UCL
Esme's thesis seeks to develop an ecocritical framing of early sixteenth-century North Italian art history, through a particular focus on representations of nonhuman animals and the natural world.
Dr John-Paul Stonard
Art historian, Author and Curator
John-Paul Stonard trained as a painter, before studying art history at the Courtauld Institute of Art. His book Creation. Art Since the Beginning was published by Bloomsbury in 2021. In the same year his history of the art collection at Chatsworth House, Chatsworth, Arcadia, Now was published by Penguin Books. He lives and works as an artist and writer in Suffolk.
Jacob Badcock
Final-year PhD candidate
History of Art department at University College London (UCL)
Jacob's research focuses on the ethics of photography in environmental crisis zones.
Further information
Ticketing
Ticketed and Pre-booking essential
Cost
Free
Open to
All
Availability
Yes