Two Youth Demand activists have pasted a photograph of a mother and child in Gaza over the protective glass of 1901 painting Motherhood (La Maternité) by Pablo Picasso at the National Gallery in London. The image, taken by Palestinian journalist Ali Jadallah, shows a Gazan mother holding her injured child among debris from sustained bombing of the region.
The pair, NHS worker Jai Halai, twenty-three, and student Monday-Malachi Rosenfeld, twenty-one, then poured red paint onto the gallery floor before being arrested. The museum confirmed that no damage had been caused to any of the paintings in the room.
Youth Demand, which stems from a student branch of Just Stop Oil, is calling for a two-way arms embargo on Israel and for the new UK government to halt all new oil and gas licences granted since 2021. An online statement from the group announced that further disruptions in other cities should be expected from next month.
The protest follows the actions of Just Stop Oil protestors last month, who threw soup over two Sunflowers paintings by Vincent Van Gogh in an exhibition of his collected works at the National Gallery.
