For ESMoA’s Experience #47 FREESTATE, an art experience in Southern California, artist Cole Sternberg created an agitprop public movement via exhibition, dedicated website and propaganda factory that conjures into conceptual existence The Free Republic of California.
Taking place both inside and outside the museum, as well as an online digital destination, FREESTATE addresses concepts of human rights, the environment, democracy and freedom through a multi-media and publicly activated artistic journey, one that recalls Joseph Beuys’ 7000 Oaks (which precipitated the founding of Germany’s Green Party in 1980). Sternberg employs sculpture in its 3-dimensional totality: physical, performative, and social to turn a mirror onto American society’s past moral choices and previously unconsidered future. The show intentionally was slated to launch just before the 2020 presidential elections and runs to February 2021.