MGMT Share Video For New Single ‘Nothing To Declare’ Starring Disabled Community Activist Inga Petry

MGMT shared another preview of their upcoming new studio album, Loss Of Life, with the release of a new single entitled, “Nothing To Declare.” The single arrived with a new video starring disabled community activist Inga Petry.

Joey Frank, who directed the video for “Nothing To Declare,” first encountered Petry on social media, which she utilizes to shed light on her experiences managing her life despite the “differences and difficulties” she faces. Petry, who was born in Siberia and adopted by American parents at age 2, has a condition called upper limb aplasia. The University of Pittsburgh student was also recently diagnosed with breast cancer.

The “Nothing To Declare” video follows Petry navigating a journey from Pittsburgh to Paris. The video culminates with the visually poignant scene of Petry at the Louvre viewing the iconic Venus de Milo sculpture.

Regarding her participation, Petry stated:

“When I was first approached by Joey to do this project, it was the parallelism in his vision that first drew me in. We listened to ‘Nothing To Declare’ as he took me through the concept of the video and I was met with the juxtaposition of beauty and melancholy. Having grown up with no arms, I have been watched my whole life. In some respects, the Venus de Milo has always felt analogous to my life, and specifically to the character I portray in this film. She’s adored, respected, and almost constantly surrounded by people, and yet she stands alone and her past is unknown.

“There have always been questions surrounding her arms and she has never had to answer or prove her worth. From my perspective, she has nothing to declare. Playing this character that is different, and not just because she doesn’t have arms, but by the way she handles the difference and still feeds on new curiosity was a really beautiful experience.

“As an individual, the song and film resonated to me in another way as well. At the time of the initial filming I had just been diagnosed with Stage III Breast Cancer. This changed my personal perception of the film and pulled me away from seeing it as a way to artistically see how my character exists with differences within her environment, and made it an experience of the individual.

“At this point in time, to me, ‘Nothing To Declare’ no longer meant that you don’t have to explain your circumstances, but instead it felt like a literal statement going through the customs of life. After this diagnosis, I couldn’t exist as the same person I was. I had to put a lot of my personal goals aside to focus on my health and recovery. In that respect, I had to end one chapter of my life and enter a new one. A chapter that doesn’t care about who I was before or what aspirations I was striving toward. Instead, one that focuses on removing all the cancer and only then will I be able to start living again.

“My wish is for people to watch the video and enjoy the art and mystery. I hope the vulnerability and curiosity that we captured is felt by the viewer.”

MGMT – Andrew VanWyngarden and Ben Goldwasser – will release Loss Of Life on February 23. The album is MGMT’s first since 2018 and marks their first on the Mom + Pop record label following a lengthy stint at Columbia Records. MGMT collaborated with producer Patrick Wimberly on the pending 10-song album, which includes the previously shared singles “Mother Nature” and “Bubblegum Dog.”

Regarding directing “Nothing To Declare,” Frank shared the statement below:

“When I first saw Inga on TikTok, I imagined her as the star of a foreign film. A certain brand of 1990’s European independent cinema typified by the Dardenne brothers always essentially follows a human navigating through life. Inga has been armless all her life, which lends a different kind of vulnerability to the simple narrative of a self possessed young woman traveling from Pittsburgh to Paris. In real life, Inga puts herself online in a very candid way on TikTok, but the ‘Nothing to Declare’ MGMT music video plays on the aesthetics of independent cinema to allow the audience a different sort of emotional fictive space with Inga as ingenue.”

Watch the video for MGMT’s new single “Nothing To Declare” starring Inga Petry here: