In the wake of President Donald Trump’s inauguration, people across the nation have been coming together to voice opposition. In the arts community in particular, people have been creating and releasing collaborative projects as a means of resistance, and inviting the public to take part in them.
“He Will Not Divide Us” by Shia LaBeouf is a countdown calendar taken to the next level. Instead of checking days off on a wall calendar, you can tune in to a live stream set up in front of the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City. Visitors to the installation have the opportunity to participate in the project by chanting “he will not divide us” in front of the camera. With the project, star power is being used to bridge the gap between art and activism and to provide a platform for resistance as a community.
Though many artists were invited to perform at the inauguration, many refused to attend and instead released new music as an act of protest. Rolling Stone Magazine has organized a 100-day list of music releases coinciding with the first 100 days after the inauguration, and artists including Gorillaz, OK Go, Green Day and Moby have released or plan to release response music.
In the visual arts community, many galleries closed in protest of the inauguration as part of the J20 Art Strike. The Art Strike was part of the broader DisruptJ20 movement, in which institutions came together to “disrupt business as usual” and to ensure that the transition to Trump does not go smoothly. As a way to encourage people to see art as a tool of opposition, other institutions offered free admission on Inauguration Day, including the Museum of Chinese in America, the New Museum, the Children’s Museum of the Arts, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Rubin Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the Museum of the Moving Image.