Responsive Strategies: Creative Responses to Trump

In January 2025, president Donald Trump declared 2026 to be a year of celebration for the 250th anniversary of the establishment of the United States. In February, Trump announced he will be the next president of the board at the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Since his inauguration, Trump has continually assaulted the arts–in funding, programing, and against leadership in cultural institutions.

Anger, fear; resistance, reluctance; emboldened, engaged. All of these feelings and emotions are ubiquitous today in our institutions as well as our communities. We are all under some form of assault and our programing has been somewhat or extensively compromised. In academia, words like DEIA and anti-racism are now less common. In response, some of us are activating our practices and professional work. Others are hesitant and protectively self-censoring.

These are signs of new cultural wars–deep schisms between groups of people with fundamentally opposing views on culture including ideology, values, beliefs and creative practices. There are multiple fronts in this war and I intentionally demarcate Cultural Wars as plural because today we need to respond to the multiple avenues of assault.

This paper and presentation examines case studies in the United States by artists, curators, and art administrators to issues of activism and resistance both overt and covert. Case studies will include exhibitions, public engagement work, and interviews with art workers. Experiences and strategies will be discussed, focusing on approaches including curatorial activism, Slow Curating, dissident creative practices, and alternative pedagogical approaches.