https://www.palestinechronicle.com/youth-demand-activists-replace-picassos-painting-with-palestinian-mother-photo/
October 10, 2024
Protesters of the Youth Demand group replaced on Wednesday a Pablo Picasso painting at the National Gallery in London with that of a Palestinian mother. (Photo: via @YouthDemand TW Page)

By Palestine Chronicle Staff

The activists demanded an arms embargo on Israel as well as a halt of all new oil and gas licenses.

Protesters of the Youth Demand group replaced on Wednesday a Pablo Picasso painting at the National Gallery in London with that of a Palestinian mother to demand a two-way arms embargo on Israel and the halt of all new oil and gas licenses granted since 2021, according to a statement by the group.

The two young activists of the group covered the 1901 Picasso’s ‘Motherhood’ (La Maternité) painting with that of a Palestinian mother from Gaza clutching her child before spilling red paint on the floor of the National Gallery in reference to the bloodshed in the one-year-old genocide in Gaza.

The two activists were identified as Jai Halai and Monday-Malachi Rosenfeld, the statement said.

Halai is a 23-year-old National Health Service (NHS) employee while Rosenfeld is a 21-year-old student studying politics at Greenwich University.

The two entered room 43 of the prestigious National Gallery around noon in an act of protest to highlight the “blatant war crimes & Western complicity,” a post by the group on X read.

The two young activists plastered the Palestinian mother’s photograph over the protective glass cover of Picasso’s painting.

The Palestinian Mother’s Photo

According to the group’s statement, the plastered photo is one that was taken by Anadolu news agency’s photojournalist Ali Jadallah, depicting a distressed Palestinian mother from Gaza holding her bloodied child following an Israeli airstrike on Al-Shifa Hospital at the start of the genocide in the enclave in 2023.

“A mom holds [her] injured child after an Israeli attack, as Israeli airstrikes continue on twelfth day, at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City”, Jadallah’s caption read according to Youth Demand’s statement. Ctd....