Paint Applied to the Case of Degas's Little Dancer Statue Due to Insufficient Action on the Climate Emergency
In an ongoing week of action with the goal of getting President Joe Biden to declare a climate emergency and halt all fossil fuel extraction/infrastructure on Federal and Indigenous lands, supporters of Declare Emergency have disrupted business as usual at the National Gallery of Art.
At around 11 AM today, concerned citizens entered the gallery housing the “little dancer” statues by Edgar Degas where they got into position for disruption, and applied fake oil and blood on the statue’s case and sat down. They put up a Declare Emergency flyer on the case and sent video messages to explain their actions. Two were arrested.
Speaking from the museum gallery, Joanna Smith, 53, from Brooklyn, NY said: "Through our peaceful yet unsettling civil disobedience we’re saying, “we will not succumb to despair.” Our leaders are making decisions antithetical to life, health, and security. Those decisions are desecrating places and harming beings. The coastal hills of my homestate are burning, flooding, and sliding. We often cannot breathe the outdoor air there.
I have family members sickened by particulate matter in the toxic air.
Today, in non-violent rebellion, we have temporarily sullied a piece of art to evoke the real children whose suffering is guaranteed if the death-cult fossil fuel companies keep removing new coal, oil, and gas from the ground. As a parent, I cannot abide this future. This little dancer is protected in her climate controlled box, but people, animals, and ecosystems currently struggling and dying in extreme weather events are not. President Biden must marshal all necessary resources towards a just transition via an Executive Declaration of Climate Emergency. At the same time, his Administration must cease issuing new drilling permits, and end all fossil fuel subsidies. And ordinary people in great numbers must join us in our call for these actions. We will not be condemned to collapse.”
The Declare Emergency campaign is calling on all of those whose futures are being destroyed, who are facing illness, destruction of their native lands, poverty and hunger and who are outraged at the prospect of continuing our dependence on fossil fuels to step up and take action, to sign up to join us in the streets. This is a climate emergency, and this is our responsibility to ourselves and people around the world.
ABOUT DECLARE EMERGENCY
Declare Emergency is a member of the A22 Network for Civil Resistance, an eleven-country coalition formed following the 1.2 degree Celsius increase in global average temperatures. Each member has a distinct policy demand from their respective governments. In the United States of America, Declare Emergency demands that President Biden declare a national climate emergency, and cease all extraction on federal and indigenous lands. https://www.declareemergency.org
MEDIA CONTACTS
Donald Zepeda (206) 383-3918
PHOTOS
All photos copyright Declare Emergency.
A22 NETWORK FOR CIVIL RESISTANCE
Media contacts and social media links for 11 International Campaigns
Read A22 Network’s Declaration on the Crisis