The art and activism initiative Fall of Freedom is anchoring its second year with hundreds of events across the United States this weekend, October 2 through October 4. Public artworks, concerts, and exhibitions are among this year’s line-up, uniting artists and cultural organizations in the fight against an increasingly authoritarian Trump administration.
Organized by a group of cultural workers including artists Dread Scott and Jenny Polak, playwright Lynn Nottage, and writer and curator Laura Raicovich, Fall of Freedom saw a successful inaugural run last November. Since then, Trump’s attacks on the arts and freedom of speech have escalated, as evidenced by his ongoing efforts to stamp his name on the Kennedy Center, repeated threats to strip federal funding from and influence programming at the Smithsonian Institution, and targeting of public artworks like Joel Shapiro’s “Blue” (2019) and José de Rivera’s “Infinity” (1967).
“Fascism in the United States is advancing and metastasizing,” Scott told Hyperallergic over email. “Migrants are being deported in record numbers. The rule of law is in tatters. And the arts are assaulted. They want to silence us. But artists and musicians are unruly and we refuse to be quiet.”
Along with fellow playwright and MacArthur “Genius” Fellowship grant recipient Dominique Morisseau, Nottage conceived Undersiege, a production with monologues from over 40 Black women and femmes, as the main event for Fall of Freedom. The National Black Theatre and the Studio Museum in Harlem will present the performance at the uptown museum on Friday, October 2.
“Artists are collectively using this moment to say our voices won’t and can’t be silenced,” Nottage told Hyperallergic over email.
“It is beautiful to witness how many people across the country have responded to this call to action by organizing concerts, readings, workshops, exhibits and salons centering art as a form of resistance, celebration and liberation,” Nottage added.
Fall of Freedom organizers scaled up the movement earlier this year, hosting a round of art and activism events nationwide around May Day.
This fall’s program includes a Roger Guenver Smith one-man show honoring painter Jean-Michel Basquiat at the New York Theatre Workshop; a workshop in Little Rock, Arkansas focused on zine-making — a practice under scrutiny by the Trump administration; and a convening at the Kennedy Center in DC where participants are encouraged to bring and share their favorite stories about the institution. During Fall of Freedom last year, organizers carried out a dance protest at the Kennedy Center in response to Trump’s authoritarian policies.
The name “Fall of Freedom” is a play on words, meant to signify both the hope and uncertainty of the current political climate. Kris Grey, a transgender and nonbinary artist who participated in Fall of Freedom’s first edition, wrote an essay for Hyperallergic last year explaining that they were motivated by both impulses.
“A core ethos of the project is the belief that creativity, in and of itself, is a practice of resistance,” Grey wrote. “Art is not a luxury in moments like this; it is a survival strategy.”
