Should they stay or should they go?

Now that we have a (new) president again, I’m faced with a bit of a dilemma: should I dump the Trump protest art?

This question comes to mind after the Museum of London announced it’s adding the original Trump Baby balloon to its collection. You might remember London protesters “welcomed” the former president with the mini-blimp in July 2018.

And just in time for that year’s Seattle Art Fair, my husband surprised me with the t-shirt version.

Ordinarily, I hoard — I mean, “collect” — things like this for my collages and assemblage sculptures as part of my practice. And it’s common for some museums to collect protest-related ephemera as material culture. In fact, the Smithsonian Institute recently acquired posters and other stuff left behind by pro-Trump insurrectionists on January 6th. But do I really want to remember this era so clearly?

And as the Trump Baby balloon makers pointed out, “…we’re under no illusions that this is the end of the story.” So what should I do with the hat and the t-shirt? Drop a suggestion on my Facebook or Instagram.