Following the 2016 election, the ArtWatch collective was formed and continued to be active for the remainder of Trump’s first term. Erin played an essential role by co-curating with Shante Bullock What Feminism Looks Like (2018), assisting with the traveling exhibition One House (2019-20), and in developing and staging actions shown here.

ArtWatch participated in organized marches, such as the DC Women’s Marches as well as guerrilla actions. Memorializing Democracy occurred in front of the White House on Memorial Day 2018. Participants were asked to read from Amy Siskind’s The List: A Week-by-Week Reckoning of Trump’s First Year. A makeshift moving platform ameliorated the prohibition against public speaking in-place at that pedestrian site.

In late 2020, ArtWatch went from embassy to embassy, thanking countries for retaining its agreement with the Paris Climate Accord, leaving a letter tied to a laurel of bamboo.

The Miss Amer(I)Can pageant was based on an earlier action Erin had developed with students in support of pro-choice autonomy. In the ArtWatch iteration, a satire of the traditional beauty pageant, the action redefined what it means to be a "contestant;" a parody of gender normativity, it was open to all. Unlike traditional pageants that emphasize physical beauty and strict codes of conduct, Miss Amer(I)Can awarded contestants for social justice and community impact.

Taking place at the Eaton Hotel on November 2, 2019 it began with a workshop called the Sash Swag Party. Participants were asked to reflect on one key social issue, presented with tools for conducting fact-based research that included how to spot manipulative disinformation. On index cards, they wrote a summary to highlight key points of the issue and why it is important to a democratic society. Provided with blank white sashes and art supplies they also made their own creative interpretation of the issue they represent. The Pageant Parade then followed with Erin as mc, and a panel of judges selected from the audience rated contestants for the title Miss Amer(I)Can based on the "most sincere evocation."

ArtWatch thought its work was done, until Trump was reelected and took office in January 2025. ArtWatchV2.0 began. Participating in the Fall of Freedom actions on November 23, Gold is Gauche is the first guerrilla action for the renewed collective, designed by Erin, Jackie Hoysted, and Lilian Blom and drawing dozens of participants.

Starting at the Lincoln Memorial and promenading to The People’s House, Gold is Gauche is spectacle and subversion, exposing the propagandistic choreography between monumentality, urban design, and the aesthetics of power that flirt with totalitarian desire.

From the imagined Neo-Arc d’Trump to the “demolition” of the East Wing, Gold is Gauche builds upon Gavin Newsom’s hilarious AI-generated vision of Trump as Marie Antoinette. Reclaiming her gilded excess, ArtWatchV2.0 holds a golden mirror to the regime’s vanity as an opera buffa—grotesque and dazzling, a satirical vernacular of the country’s gilded decline.