The Davis Museum in Wellesley, Mass., has gaping blank spaces on its walls, empty podiums and shrouded pieces of work after removing or covering all art that was created or donated by immigrants.
The #artless movement aims to provide a visual representation of cultural contributions immigrants have made to the U.S. — and the gaps that would be left without them.
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The museum is taking a stand against growing anti-immigrant rhetoric in the United States, and President Donald Trump‘s ongoing travel ban efforts.
“For the days leading up to and including the Presidents’ Day holiday weekend we have removed or cloaked these works to demonstrate symbolically what the Davis Museum would look like without their contributions to our collections and to Wellesley College,” the museum said in a statement.
The move also coincided with A Day Without Immigrants, a general strike in the U.S. that took place Thursday to serve as an example of the vital work immigrants do in the country every day.
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In the artworks’ temporary absence, the museum added a label of either “made by an immigrant” or “given by an immigrant.” The museum also offered downloadable labels for other “sympathetic institutions” that would like to do the same.
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