The human race is well on its way to a mass extinction event that world powers are doing little to prevent, so what better way to protest this than presenting ourselves as an extinct species in a museum? Extinction Rebellion (XR) gave us a glimpse of what that might look like by staging a die-in at London’s Natural History museum yesterday as over 100 protesters lay down beneath the (extremely large) blue whale skeleton in the main hall.
As “the home for the history of life on Earth from the smallest insects to the largest of mammals”, organisers saw the museum as the perfect place to draw attention to not only our imminent destruction, but the extermination of all other life on earth too.
Jo Woolfall, an organiser of the action told Dazed that the die-in “was to raise awareness among the general public of a message that is not getting through – that we are in the midst of the sixth mass extinction – and humans are not exempt from this”.
“The action was a perfect fit for the Natural History Museum – a museum which honours the existence and extinction of all forms of life on Earth and it was a great success in terms of turnout, capitalising on and supporting the momentum of the XR movement this past week”.
Over 1000 arrests have been made as a result of the protests across London over the past week staged at Oxford Circus, Waterloo Bridge, Parliament Square and Marble Arch, but no arrests were thought to be linked to the die-in which lasted for little over an hour.
Another XR march is scheduled today as activists dust themselves down from over seven days of resisting state force to walk from the rebellion’s last remaining stronghold in the capital, Marble Arch, toward Parliament Square.