Make America Sleep Again (2026) by Jordan Lord

7 Mar-8 Mar 2026

Make America Sleep Again, 2026, Still. Credit: Courtesy of the artist.

Overview

This web installation consists of a series of 12 advertisements that have played on Fox News from 2018 to the present, which variously promise miracle cures, pain relief, and care. The artist took note of these ads, as they played in their grandmother’s bedroom, gyms, and waiting rooms. Others, they found on the website, iSpot, which measures the performance of television advertisements. The video consists of the advertisements and open captions, written by the artist, of the dialogue and other sounds. The right side of the webpage consists of a series of audio files and text transcripts––each of which corresponds to one of the videos on the left––which audio describe each sound, image, and editing decision that the artist observed in the 12 advertisements, as well as analysis of their audiovisual strategies. 

Many of the treatments and solutions the commercials offer, which are largely touted as “natural,” are legitimized primarily by a presumed identification between the audience and the products’ spokespeople, who step from their roles as news commentary hosts, propagandists, and politicians into health and financial advisors––often through a revelation of their own pain, sleeplessness and/or vulnerability, which they claim has since been eradicated by the product they’re selling. 

Disabled veterans also frequently figure into these commercials’ visual language, playing multiple roles including objects of charity, symbols of ideology, standards of comparison, and proofs of concept.  

These ads both prefigure and reflect the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement, given power by the appointment of anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services. MAHA policies have led to the re-emergence of deadly measles outbreaks, the spread of pernicious lies about autism, and the dismantling of public health infrastructure in the United States. 

Make America Sleep Again (2026) was presented as part of Jordan Lord’s solo exhibition ‘Narrative Warfare’ at LUX, from 11 April – 31 May 2026. 

This web version is available on our website from 3 July to 3 August 2026. 

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