Located at the National Gallery in London, activists pasted an image of a Palestinian mother and child over Pablo Picasso’s 1901 painting Motherhood (La Maternité). Jai Halai, who is 23 and works for the National Health Service, and student Monday-Malachi Rosenfeld, 21, carried out the protest to highlight the difficulties faced by families in Gaza. After setting a photo of the royal couple on the floor, they splashed red paint to provide imagery of bloodshed prior to being taken into custody by gallery guards.
Youth Demand X posted a video on social media showing Rosenfeld seated in front of the red-floored room and speaking to the crowd. Every single one of your taxes is going up in smoke: to murder whole families in Gaza. That had “nothing to do with us; they said this is in the Jewish name,” Rosenfeld said.
No other works in the room, including the Picasso painting were damaged, according to a statement from the museum. The photo had been secured to a protective glass over the painting and was quickly taken off by a security guard. Youth Demand uploaded video showing the guard pulling down the image and removing activists from the area.
Halai raged at the UK government, branding it “complicit in genocide” as officers held her against a wall by the gallery. “Children are dying in Gaza. They´re being anesthetized and operated on. Women are going without medical help during childbirth. Our government is complicit. The government continues to ship arms, although 87 percent of the public who support an arms embargo in Israel.
Youth Demand, which Halai and Rosenfeld are part of, is a student wing of the climate action group Just Stop Oil — an organisation which has staged confrontational interventions at art institutions across the UK. Its high-profile tactics, including throwing soup over paintings and gluing themselves to artwork frames are seen as ensuring debates begin without long-term harm being caused to their targets.
Two-way arms embargo on Israel demanded by new campaign Youth Demand alongside ending any new UK oil and gas licenses provided since 2021. Starting on November 11, the group said it would carry out further disruptions in other cities.
The protest was held as demonstrations in support of Gaza took place globally with the one year anniversary of Israel’s military offensive there last summer. In April, a United Nations report underscored the harsh conditions of Gaza in which more than ” 10 thousand women killed, of whom about 6000 have been mothers are orphaned more than 19 thousand children” More than a million women and girls suffer from food shortages, lack of clean drinking water and precipitously
The report also stressed that women who survived the bombings and those taking place on the ground were often displaced, widowed and at risk of starvation, claiming that it was a war targeting the Gaza Strip through destroying nearly all aspects of life while women and girls will take over a larger share of both men’s responsibilities.
The National Gallery episode follows in the footsteps of a string of protests centred around art, as campaigning groups like Youth Demand and Just Stop Oil use similar sensationalist stunts to highlight urgent humanitarian and environmental concerns.
Feature Image: Jai Halai and Monday-Malachi Rosenfeld on camera covering Pablo Picasso’s 1901 painting Motherhood (La Maternité) with an image of a mother and child from Gaza. Courtesy: Youth Demand
