About

The People vs. Project 2025 is a national organizing campaign designed to connect, amplify, and mobilize artists and cultural workers that are confronting — or are ready to confront — Project 2025, a coordinated authoritarian agenda threatening democracy, civil rights, and cultural freedom in the United States.

Project 2025, released by the Heritage Foundation and aligned organizations, outlines a plan to consolidate executive power, roll back civil liberties, erase hard-won rights, and impose a Christian nationalist vision on U.S. governance. [CLICK HERE for details]. We believe artists have a vital role to play in resisting these anti-democratic forces and reclaiming our collective future.

Rooted in the principles of solidarity, humility, hope, and multiplicity, The People vs. Project 2025 seeks to:

Connect a nationwide network of artists drawing on creativity and cultural expression to counter authoritarianism and targeted state repression.
Develop coordinated strategies that blend artistic practice and grassroots activism to defend democracy, celebrate collective power, and affirm the pluralistic future we deserve.
Develop a list of demands to build back the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), Public Broadcasting Services (PBS), National Public Radio (NPR) and other arts and arts education services decimated by the current administration.

This campaign is both a creative experiment and an invitation to artists nationwide to build and strengthen solidarity with political organizers, justice movements, and advocacy groups across the country who are sounding the alarms and taking action every day, disrupting business as usual.

In 2025, we’re beginning by inviting artists and cultural workers to help shape this initiative and/or build a local, artist-created action on September 20 or 21, during the Autumnal Equinox, a time of re-balancing, reflecting, and reclaiming our narratives. From this prototype, we will lay the groundwork for deeper collaboration and a national strategy as we move toward the 2026 midterm elections and beyond.

How to Get Involved

As a Volunteer

This is a volunteer-led campaign. We ask volunteers to be able to commit to 1-2 hours per week to engage in the following:

Lead or support a working group (e.g. strategy development, writing, outreach, marketing, social media and communications, logistics, policy alignment, etc.);
Join bi-weekly organizing meetings.
To Volunteer CLICK HERE.

As an Action Partner

If you are planning an action for September 20 or 21, fill out THIS FORM to let us know. We will follow-up to get more details and to explore how we can help.

As a Supporter

To stay updated, learn about future actions, and/or submit your local action when you’re ready CLICK HERE.

Why This

Authoritarianism is a cultural threat as much as a political one. Project 2025 doesn’t just target agencies or laws. It seeks to reshape society by narrowing who belongs, what stories are told, and what futures are possible.

Artists have always challenged this kind of control. We reveal truths, bridge divides, and help people imagine alternatives. As fear and division grow, art paired with activism can move hearts, shift narratives, and build the emotional and cultural power needed to defend democracy.

Why Now

Artists across the country have long been creating work that challenges injustice and creates space community voices. But while many are deeply connected at the local level, there is no national network linking these efforts together — even as the threat has grown more organized, consolidated and far-reaching in scale.

With Project 2025 in motion, we need a national network that links local action, supports artists as civic leaders, and helps shape a cultural front for democracy, starting with coordinated actions this fall and growing toward 2026 and beyond. We aim to knit a long-haul cultural movement that defends and expands democracy (which Project 2025 threatens) supports artists as civic actors, affirms the value of creative labor, and strengthens connections among artists committed to this essential work.