A week after police confiscated artist Robin Bell’s projection equipment and arrested one of his collaborators, the local visual artist has his equipment back and plans to get back in the game, stepping up the number of projections he’s doing as the weather warms up, he tells DCist.

Last night, Bell was already back at it, doing several projections on the front wall of the Newseum.

https://twitter.com/bellvisuals/status/1108528223971889158

Bell is a well-known local visual artist who projects imagery onto buildings throughout the District, many in protest of the Trump Administration. He has projected several images onto the Trump International Hotel in the last two years, including “Felons Welcome Here”, the text of the constitution’s emoluments clause, and “Pay Trump bribes here”. He also projected an image of Jeff Sessions in KKK robes on the walls of the Department of Justice.

Last week, Bell says he and some collaborators were on Capitol grounds projecting the words “Discrimination is wrong” onto the Rayburn House Office Building while lawmakers debated the Equality Act, which would ban discrimination against LGBTQ people. Capitol Police arrived on scene and arrested one of Bell’s collaborators, Robby Diesu, and then confiscated all of Bell’s projection equipment as evidence. It’s the first time in Bell’s many years of doing this kind of activism that someone working with him has been arrested, he says.

In fact, Bell says he had done projections in that exact same spot twice before. Once, police arrived as he was finishing up the demonstration and told him he was not allowed to advertise on the building. Bell says he left to avoid further confrontation (particularly as he was about to leave anyway), but he figured that since he hadn’t been advertising anything, he hadn’t been breaking the law.

This time, however, Bell says police were aggressive off the bat. “We were there for a while and we had an officer walk by twice and didn’t say anything,” Bell says. “Then a sergeant came in his car, really aggressively, and said you have to stop, this is an arrestable offense and I don’t have to give you a warning.” After some back and forth, the officer arrested Diesu.

Projecting images on Congressional buildings has always been illegal, according to Capitol Police spokesperson Eva Malecki, but a recent law change further clarified that aspect of the law. The regulation in question prohibits demonstration activity “on the steps of any building on Capitol Grounds, or in any area otherwise closed or restricted for official use.” In language that became official on February 17, the regulation also holds that “in addition, projecting of images on any building on Capitol Grounds shall not be permitted.”

“The amended traffic regulation is not a new prohibition. It is further clarification of the existing prohibition of unlawfully demonstrating in, on, or against Congressional building,” Malecki tells DCist via email.

Capitol Police took Bell’s projection equipment as evidence, Malecki says. (Bell, for his part, thinks this was unnecessary: “You don’t need to take the equipment to prove we do what we do. We are so transparent. Like I’m going to go say, ‘No, I, Robin Bell, do not project on buildings.'”)

Police originally told Bell he wouldn’t get his equipment back until Diesu’s court date on April 17, prompting him to set up a GoFundMe to pay for backup equipment and for the legal fees associated with this case. But then Capitol Police called Wednesday and said they could come pick up the equipment, Bell says. After he got it back, he deactivated the GoFundMe, which had raised $14,046. He already bought back up equipment with the money just in case something like this happens again, he says, and they’ll still need some of the money for legal fees. Whatever is left over will be used for future projections and projects, he says.

“So now, the good thing is we have a backup,” Bell says. “The biggest issue is … when law enforcement acts like this, it creates a chilling effect. It makes people scared to do what they’re legally allowed to do. It’s censorship, you know? If you go out and do something you think is legal, and you get in trouble, and a law changed without you knowing,” you may feel discouraged from protesting in the future.

Not Bell, though.

“We’re back at it,” he says.

Previously:
Police Arrest Man Who Projected ‘Discrimination Is Wrong’ On Congressional Building