Shia LaBeouf’s anti-Trump performance art project He Will Not Divide Us has relocated from the US to Liverpool owing to safety concerns.
The project is now being exhibited at the city’s Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (Fact) gallery, as “events have shown that America is simply not safe enough for this artwork to exist”, a statement from the actor’s artistic group LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner said.
He Will Not Divide Us was originally installed on a wall outside New York’s Museum of the Moving Image on 20 January, the day of Trump’s inauguration. The project, which consists of a live video stream of LaBeouf and others chanting “he will not divide us” into a camera, is intended to run for four years, or the duration of the Trump presidency.
However, the site soon became a flashpoint for violence, with far-right activists regularly disrupting the exhibition. LaBeouf was arrested in January following an altercation with a man who said “Hitler did nothing wrong” into the camera. In February the museum closed the exhibition citing “serious public safety hazards”.
The project was then relocated to a wall outside the El Rey theatre in Albuquerque, but was suspended after gunshots were heard in the area. In March the project moved to an undisclosed location, and consisted of video of a white flag featuring the words He Will Not Divide Us. However, users of the message board site 4chan soon located the site and defaced the exhibition, prompting the latest move.
The project began its residency at Fact on Wednesday. Currently, the livestream for the project shows a white flag in the same style as the one displayed at the undisclosed location.
LaBeouf has previously collaborated with Fact. In 2015, the actor appeared at the gallery as part of an performance art project called #TOUCHMYSOUL, in which he answered calls from members of the public.
