“Fall of Freedom” returns with hundreds of art actions against authoritarianism in the U.S.

The “Fall of Freedom” initiative, which brings together art and activism, has returned this year with its second edition — with hundreds of events across the United States from 2 to 4 October, as Hyperallergic reports. Public artworks, concerts, exhibitions, zine-making workshops and readings are part of this year’s programme, bringing together artists and cultural organisations in what the organisers describe as resistance to an increasingly authoritarian administration.

The movement is led by a group of cultural workers, among them the artists Dread Scott and Jenny Polak, the playwright Lynn Nottage and the writer and curator Laura Raicovich. The first edition was held last November; since then, the organisers stress, attacks on the arts and freedom of speech have escalated — from the efforts to put Trump’s name on the Kennedy Center to the threats to federal funding and the influence over the Smithsonian Institution’s programme, and even the targeting of public works such as Joel Shapiro’s “Blue” and José de Rivera’s “Infinity”.

The headline event of this weekend is “Undersiege”, a production of monologues by more than 40 Black women and femmes, conceived by Nottage together with MacArthur grant winner Dominique Morisseau. It was performed on Friday, 2 October, at the Studio Museum in Harlem, in collaboration with the National Black Theatre. This autumn’s programme also includes a performance in honour of the painter Jean-Michel Basquiat at New York Theatre Workshop, a zine-making workshop in Little Rock — a practice which, as Hyperallergic writes, has been placed under surveillance by the administration — and a gathering at the Kennedy Center in Washington, where participants are invited to share their favourite stories about the institution.

“Artists are collectively using this moment to say that our voice cannot and will not be silenced,” Nottage told Hyperallergic by email. “It is beautiful to see how many people across the country have answered this call to action by organising concerts, readings, workshops, exhibitions and salons that place art at the centre as a form of resistance, celebration and liberation.” Dread Scott was equally blunt: “Fascism in the United States is advancing and metastasizing. … But artists and musicians are defiant and we refuse to be silent.”

The movement’s name is a wordplay that signals both the hope and the uncertainty of the current political climate, Hyperallergic writes. The organisers expanded the movement earlier this year with a series of nationwide events around 1 May, while the previous edition culminated in a dance protest at the Kennedy Center. “A core ethic of the project is the belief that creativity, in itself, is a practice of resistance,” wrote the artist Kris Grey, a participant in the first edition. “Art is not a luxury in such moments; it is a survival strategy.”