Last Saturday, June 24, 20 environmental activists gathered at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in a demonstration against the increasingly harsh punishments facing climate protestors.

The group, made up of members from Extinction Rebellion and Rise & Resist, painted their palms red and black and formed a circle around Edgar Degas’s bronze sculpture Little Dancer Aged Fourteen (1878–81)—effectively recreating a protest staged by activists Joanna Smith and Tim Martin at the National Gallery of Art (NGA) in Washington, D.C. earlier this year.

Smith and Martin, who belong to the Declare Emergency climate group, were arrested for splattering paint on the protective plexiglass surrounding a wax version of the same Degas sculpture at the NGA on April 27. The duo’s demonstration was among the first staged in an American institution after waves of similar protests rocked European museums last year.

The action caused $2,400 worth of damage, but the artwork was not harmed.