Shia LaBeouf And Supporters Harassed During Latest Art Project
[Helsinki, Finland] Popular actor and performance artist Shia LaBeouf and his fans were recently taunted and harassed during his latest stunt. The harassers reportedly belonged to a group of U.S. President Trump supporters. LaBeouf brushed them off, throwing out labels such as "resentful" and "lonely."
His latest project, called "Alone Together," launched on April 12th and features LaBeouf spending a month alone in an isolated cabin located in the Finnish Arctic, about 1,000 kilometers north of Helsinki (in Lapland).
His only connection to the outside world are typed messages that can be read on a screen inside the Kiasma Museum of Modern Art in Helsinki.
Days after the project started, a guard was placed outside the museum due to a group of young men dressed in all black disrupting visitor contact with LaBeouf. The men were reportedly wearing "Make America Great Again" hats.
During the incident, the perpetrators filmed their visit on their phones. After, they posted videos on anonymous internet forums resulting in others threatening to track down the location of LaBeouf's isolated and secret hideout.
Speaking to AFP about the incident, Labeouf said, "They come to antagonize and threaten and disrupt in hope of having an effect ... They're lonely and resentful. They live in their phones - rarely look up ... they're always male and always white."
A video feed is also available that allows visitors in the museum to speak with the actor and his two other colleagues, Nastja Ronkko and Luke Turner. The three artists are unable to communicate with each other and can only respond to visitors with typed messages.
Speaking about the recent disruption, Ronkko called the men "trolls" and described them as "school bullies but online."
The Kiasma museum has so far refused to comment on the disturbance.
LaBeouf is best known for featuring in films such as "Transformers" (2007), "Disturbia" (2007) and "Nymphomaniac" (2013).
The star was recently arrested in January when he allegedly assaulted a man outside the Museum of the Moving Image in New York.
The museum was hosting another of LaBeouf's art projects, "He Will Not Divide Us" which started on January 20th, the day President Trump was inaugurated. HWNDU faced similar interruptions and had to relocate multiple times.
The performance in Finland is scheduled to continue until May 12th.
