Planning to Protest? Borrow a Banner at the Skirball
Just outside a small gallery at the Skirball Cultural Center, a floral wallpaper beckons you to enter "Talking Back to Power: Projects by Aram Han Sifuentes." Inside, a whole world of protest and resistance on fabric unfolds.
There is an arresting tapestry collaged from the scrapped cuffs of denim jeans bearing embroidered quotations from Korean garment workers. Another wall has dozens of needlepoint samplers, each with questions and corresponding answers from the United States citizenship test. From the ceiling, even more protest banners loom overhead.
"Talking Back to Power" explores protest, immigration and citizenship through Sifuentes' collaborative sewing projects. By combining sewing, oral history and community engagement, Sifuentes is able to give a platform to people that are often left out of civic discourse, usually because of disenfranchisement, language barriers or fear of deportation.
But unlike many exhibitions, this one has an unusual component, one where you can take the artwork home — or, more specifically, to a rally. Tucked into the corner of the gallery is what Sifuentes calls the Banner Lending Library, an interactive part of the artist's exhibition.
Lending a Hand in Protest
In this section, colorful banners hang from a bright yellow wall. One declares "affordable housing for all" in bold orange and red felt letters set against a garden scene with snails, ladybugs, mushrooms and dandelions. Another banner, this one on orange fabric dotted with zebras, says "too cute to be binary." A third is a simpler design that says, "Sé valiente. Be brave." in white letters and a plain red background.
These are only a few of the items you can check out from the Banner Lending Library. Anyone can sign out a banner and take it home to display in a window, or wave it defiantly at a rally outside City Hall. There are no strict deadlines for loans, and they can be returned in-person or mailed back to the Skirball.
The library and its open-ended guidelines are a reflection of the Chicago-based artist's quest to make resistance more accessible. "I think a lot of my work as an artist is to rupture dominant narratives that make people invisible," Sifuentes said. "We need to take to the streets and protest, but that's not a safe space for a lot of people, and a lot of people don't have that choice."
The idea for the library began after Trump was elected in 2016, Sifuentes wanted to join the protests, but felt that she couldn't because she was still not a U.S. citizen. "I wanted that security so that I can be bolder and say things louder, and take more risks as an artist," Sifuentes said. She feared that she could be arrested and deported to Korea, which could separate her from her daughter, not to mention face other consequences from Trump's harsh immigration policies.
Even though she didn't feel safe marching because of her immigration status, Sifuentes found another way to contribute. She began making the banners, both alone and in workshops with other disenfranchised communities. Her workshop participants were also proud of their work, but shared concerns about safety, and so Sifuentes started letting friends and acquaintances borrow the banners so they could serve as proxies.
Most of the slogans featured in the banner lending library come from the participants who took a workshop with Sifuentes. When another person identifies with the message and checks out a banner, it becomes more powerful, transferring the slogan from a personal issue to a universal message.
Making Values Visible
One person drawn to these banners was Glo Choi, a community organizer who works with the HANA Center, an advocacy group for Korean Americans and Asians in Chicago. In 2019, he brought some of Sifuentes' banners to the March for DACA& Temporary Protected Status, an 18-day, 230-mile walk from New York City to Washington, D.C., that called for the protection of Dreamers and a path to citizenship.
In bright blue felt, "citizenship for all" glowed against a red-orange backdrop of poppies. Two protesters held the long, rectangular banner while they walked. Another banner read "defend DACA" in red letters, defiantly jumping off a sky-blue fabric with white clouds.
"It was wonderful to have those messages with us," Choi said. "It was our values in a physical manifestation. A lot of those people just wanted to carry that. People want it to show the world that this is what we're doing"
As the protesters marched, the banners exchanged hands from one to another. They were not just a message, but also a blanket, a seat and a rain cover. More durable than a cardboard sign, the HANA Center still uses the banners in their protests today.
Sifuentes' use of fabric in protest is a legacy that stems from her immigrant experience. The artist's family moved from South Korea to California when she was five years old and supported themselves by working at a dry cleaning business before eventually opening up their own shop. Sifuentes' mother would take garments home to work on alterations, and in order to help her, Sifuentes learned how to sew. Her childhood mirrors the trajectory of many immigrants who move to America and take up jobs in the garment industry. Sewing became more than just a skill. It established kinship, and became an accessible medium for socially engaged artwork.
Citizenship in Action
Before building up her library of protest banners, Sifuentes interrogated the meaning of citizenship with needlework samplers. She brought custom-made embroidery cloth to classes in Chicago, where she helped people study civics and history materials covered in the citizenship test while teaching basic embroidery skills. The group would embroider the questions and answers to the citizenship test while also adding their own personal flair. Some of the group's finished works were offered for sale to offset the prohibitive cost of applying for citizenship. (Application fees in 2022 are now at $725.) Other muslin squares though would become part of her ongoing series, "U.S. Citizenship Test Samplers."
With the overlap between garment workers and immigrants, it turned out that Sifuentes often didn't need to teach her study groups how to sew. "People would take them home, and then bring back really decorated, really elaborate pieces," Sifuentes told me in an interview. "People add borders to them, like crochet borders, or they sew beads and sequins into them."
At the Skirball, a sampler made by "VG" in 2021 asks about unalienable rights. VG sewed in a rainbow row of smiley face beads, emphasizing the answer: our right to the pursuit of happiness.
Everything for Everyone
At the Skirball, the Banner Lending Library features slogans collected by the center's staff, amplifying the issues they care about most. Already, banners have been made to address the war in Ukraine and the Supreme Court's overturning of Roe vs. Wade. The collection will continue to grow as the Skirball hosts monthly banner making workshops with the public. Sifuentes also posts instructions online, encouraging people to make banners independently.
Emma Thorne-Christy, a museum exhibition designer, was drawn to a plaid banner that reads "being homeless is not a crime" in white letters. Thorne-Christy hopes she can tie it to the fence that has been surrounding Echo Park Lake for more than a year following the controversial eviction of nearly 200 unhoused people who lived at the park.
"This sign is responding to how we treat poor people, and this fear that poverty is contagious," said Thorne-Christy. She's grateful that it gives her the opportunity to extend the banner's impact beyond the walls of a gallery.
"I think there's something so powerful about going to an exhibit, having an embodied experience like I had at Aram's show, and then taking something with me," Thorne-Christy said.
For now, Sifuentes is still making banners, always responding to the continued oppression and disenfranchisement of Americans, especially people of color. She hopes that there will eventually be a world that doesn't need these messages, and summarized her hope for the future with her favorite slogan, a phrase inspired by the Zapatista rebellion: "para todos todo" or "everything for everyone."
