November 12, 2022
Maple Syrup on a Masterpiece: Climate Protest in Canada
In late 2022 the climate protests targeting famous art reached Canada, where activists poured maple syrup over an Emily Carr painting in Vancouver.
The wave of climate protests against beloved artworks went global in 2022. In Vancouver, activists poured maple syrup over a painting by Emily Carr — Canada's most celebrated modern artist — at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Carr is revered for her swirling, almost spiritual paintings of British Columbia's forests and the totem poles of its Indigenous peoples — a fitting, if fraught, choice for a protest about the natural world.
As in London and Potsdam, the work was protected and unharmed. But the action extended an uncomfortable global debate about whether endangering art is a legitimate way to defend the planet.
Image: “Emily Carr - Indian Church” — Emily Carr, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.