LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner’s latest art installation has been shut down, following concerns that it was creating a “serious and ongoing public safety hazard”. 

The four-year-long project, titled HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US, was set up outside New York’s Museum of Moving Image last month. It encouraged members of the public to chant the anti-Trump mantra “he will not divide us” as many times as they wanted, while staring into a live-stream webcam.

Unfortunately, despite its unifying intentions, the installation was quick to attract trouble. Within days, Labeouf got into a heated confrontation with a white supremacist, who had turned up in a Nazi uniform to disrupt the project. The artist and actor was also arrested at the site later that week, after getting into an altercation with a man shouting the phrase “Hitler did nothing wrong”.

According to a statement from the Museum of Moving Image, HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US had begun to put “visitors, staff, local residents, and businesses” at risk.

“The installation had become a flashpoint for violence and was disrupted from its original intent,” explained a spokesperson for the Museum today. “While the installation began constructively, it deteriorated markedly after one of the artists was arrested on the site of the installation and ultimately necessitated this action.”

They continued: “Over the course of the installation, there have been dozens of threats of violence and numerous arrests, such that police felt compelled to be stationed outside the installation 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner have yet to officially comment on the installation’s closure – although the original website (and LaBeouf’s Twitter account) accuses the Museum of “abandoning” the project. See below: