Shia LaBeouf tweeted today that his four-year anti-Donald Trump exhibit, “He Will Not Divide Us,” has found a new home overseas. As of today, the live-streaming protest was adopted by the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (FACT) in Liverpool, UK.
The project, co-created with Luke Turner and Nastja Säde Rönkkö, was removed at the end of last month from its second location at the El Rey Theater in Albuquerque, NM, after reports of gunfire in the area. Prior to that location, it was stationed at the Museum of the Moving Image in Queens, but it was shut down for creating “an ongoing public safety hazard,” according to the museum.
“Events have shown that America is simply not safe enough for this artwork to exist,” the trio stated on FACT’s website. According to the site, the new location is “particularly fitting for Turner, who grew up in the North West of England. … We are proud to be continuing the project at FACT, an arts centre at the heart of the community,” he added.
For now a flag emblazoned with the words “He Will Not Divide Us” will be continuously live-streamed from FACT on hewillnotdivide.us for four years, or the duration of the 45th Presidency of the United States.
Launched on Inauguration Day, the original livestream project invited people to join in and chant “He will not divide us” for as long as they wished. The installation (pictured above with LaBeouf in NYC) was to be kept up for the duration of Trump’s presidency but was taken down after the museum stated that it was “a serious and ongoing public safety hazard for its visitors, staff, local residents and businesses.”
The exhibit has been surrounded by controversy, with LaBeouf being arrested in January after allegedly pushing a man at the NYC site, though the creators stated that “there had been no incidents of physical violence at the site of our project that we are aware of, nor that we had been informed of at any stage by the museum.” The New Mexico location also was vandalized by red paint prior to its removal.
