making art

Cumming says that the filming has been an intense experience because of the subject matter. “I have this sort of, I don’t know what it is, soreness in my heart, in my chest, when I think about it,” he says. But it’s left him feeling hopeful for the future after working alongside so many young people.

“They were so gorgeous and supportive and kind,” he says. “It’s very emotional.”

Despite the theme, the show also features a lot of uplifting solidarity and camaraderie, expressed through the younger workers who work at his bar. “Joy, queer joy, trans joy, Black joy is a form of protest”, says Cumming. “It infuriates people who don’t have joy or don’t understand why you can have joy when the world, everything seems to be against you.”

“There’s great joy [in Tip Toe].” What follows is a short pause: “Some of it.”

"Operation Epic Furious: Strait To Hell" is an installation originally placed at the D.C. War Memorial by anonymous art protest group The Secret Handshake. The three functional video game cabinets in D.C. featured tongue-in-cheek battles against DEI and the pope, the group said via email, in a satirical take on the Trump administration's promotion of the war in Iran.

As of May 18, one of the games is set up near Trump's Winter White House in Florida. Operation Epic Furious will be on display at MTN SPACE in Lake Worth Beach, about five miles from Mar-a-Lago, for five days. This is the first time the group has brought their project to Florida, but Trump's club usually closes after Mother's Day when the social season winds down.

Lake credited “School House Rock,” the animated kids’ show covering topics from civics to technology to the bop of catchy rock songs, as part of his inspiration behind KYR-U. After School House Rock ended in 2004, a gap was left in educational programs dedicated to children. Now, the ALCU is working to change that with Know Your Rights University.

“It just felt like this is a perfect time for us as an organization. We’ve always wanted to do something like this. We wanted to do more proactive education versus just reactionary,” Lake continued. “We know that the best way for all of us to help our country move forward is to keep asking questions and to have that understanding of ‘Never forget, you have rights.’”

The “Ball Without Billionaires” fashion show on May 4 flips the 2026 Met Gala theme—“Fashion is Art”—into a counter-declaration: “Labor is Art,” centering workers as models styled by emerging designers while reclaiming power and culture from wealthy elites. Dubbed the “Working People’s Met Gala,” the event features current and former workers from Amazon, Whole Foods, The Washington Post, Starbucks, Uber and more walking the runway in designs crafted by immigrant and BIPOC designers, embracing a vision of fashion that represents people’s power, identity, and collective storytelling.