Chicago artist creates ingenious library for protest banners
CHICAGO - Aram Han Sifuentes, Chicago's exuberantly profane master of the sewing machine, dragged two large blue bags from Ikea across her basement, swinging them like wrecking balls before dropping them to the floor. The bags were overstuffed with fabrics, their crinkly polypropylene sides bulging with materials that had been folded in half, then folded in half again, then again, then squashed down, to make room for more fabrics.
She explained: Since she began the Protest Banner Lending Library - since she began making protest banners last year after the presidential election, then encouraging others to make protest banners - keeping up has been almost impossible. She and her husband, performance artist Roberto Sifuentes, recently moved into a new home, and already the basement is being crowded with protest banners and shopping bags crammed with piles of fabrics needed for more banners.
Still, this Protest Banner Lending Library lives, floating around Chicago since December, sometimes staying for weeks in an art gallery, sometimes in her basement.
Banners saying, "We Can't We Won't We Don't Stop."
Banners saying, "Change for Climate Change."
Banners saying, "(Expletive) Good Intentions."
As she dug into her stockpile, she talked: The curators at the Design Museum in London are showing one of her banners for the next few months, as part of its prestigious Beazley Designs of the Year exhibition, so they asked her to choose a representative work. "This is what I wanted to send," she said, sort of joking, holding up a banner that showed the F-word, repeated
