This is not content.
This is not a personal brand play.
This is a place to think out loud, document what I see, name the grifts, call out the systems, and share how artists and creatives are actually surviving, organizing, and making meaning right now.
2025 Artivist Dispatch
January 2025: This month in the U.S., the war on culture escalated:
Trump Purges the Kennedy Center
Trump fired board members and appointed himself chairman, vowing to make the Kennedy Center "great again" and attacking its drag performances. He also revived plans for an “American Heroes” Sculpture Garden, a thinly veiled attempt to glorify figures of his choosing. (Christopher Columbus? Really? CC was neither American, nor did he discover America.)
Meanwhile, the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) quietly revised its grant guidelines, prioritizing projects that align with Trump’s vision for America’s 250th anniversary.
Finally, the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities—a major cultural advisory group—was disbanded.
But artists are fighting back.
Coney Island Artists vs. Big Money
In Coney Island, NYC, artists and organizers are resisting a proposed casino that threatens to destroy the historic neighborhood, the world famous Mermaid Parade, and displace its creative community. Follow @coney.island.usa for ways to support. Their website:
Guerrilla Girls Return
The legendary feminist art activists, Guerrilla Girls, have their first NYC gallery show in 10 years, calling out racism, sexism, and the continued erasure of marginalized artists. Their latest posters put The Art World on trial. (Yes, I was there—pic incoming of me in front of their ManifestA!) The show is still up at Hannah Traore Gallery in the Lower East Side:
