Aram Han Sifuentes

Regular price $28.00

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This tote bag design comes from a banner in the Protest Banner Lending Library. Aram Han Sifuentes created the Protest Banner Lending Library in 2016, where she facilitates free and public protest banner making workshops and runs physical lending libraries of donated banners. More than 3,000 banners have been made in workshops, and there are Protest Banner Lending Libraries in cities all over the United States and internationally that house more than 600 banners. It is an active ongoing project where banners are constantly circulating, being checked out, used, and returned.

Helping Handles: Tote Bags 4 Refugee Fundraiser is a series of tote bags made by Chicago artists to raise funds to get activated cell phones for asylum seekers arriving in Chicago.

Tote bags go for $28 - or you can donate your old phone in exchange for a tote bag of your choice!

Inspired by arts community mobilization efforts like the Bootlegs 4 Brandon project, Buddy has assembled 14 amazing artists to donate their artwork, which we’ve printed on bags that we’re releasing Aug 25. meet the urgent needs of assylum seekers involuntarily bussed to our city. Help us help our new neighbors get oriented, communicate with family and friends, and thrive with us in our welcoming communities.

Public Media Institute is working to get these newly-arriving refugees working phones with SIM cards. This is something our mutual aid buddies across the city have unanimously let us know there is urgent need for; other nonprofits and community groups are working to get asylum seekers’ basic needs met, but no one is helping people get the phones essential to find work, communicate with loved ones, and navigate complicated government aid.

In June, PMI acquired 100 SIM cards, but have only been able to activate 30 of them so far. We are raising funds to activate more phones at the cost of about $40 per phone. More information about our campaign to collect funds for phones and old phone donations is here.

Dimensions: 14.5 x 15.5"
Materials: Screenprint on 6 oz, 100% cotton canvas tote

Aram Han Sifuentes

Instagram: @ aramhansifuentes

Aram Han Sifuentes is a fiber and social practice artist who creates participatory projects that center immigrant and disenfranchised communities. Her work often revolves around skill sharing, specifically sewing techniques, to create multiethnic and intergenerational sewing circles, which become a place for empowerment, subversion, and protest. Solo exhibitions of her work have been presented at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Chicago; Hyde Park Art Center, Chicago; Chicago Cultural Center, Chicago; Pulitzer Arts Foundation, St. Louis; moCa Cleveland, Cleveland; and Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles.

She has received numerous awards including a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship, 3Arts Award, 3Arts Next Level Award, Map Fund Grant, and Joyce Award. Her project Protest Banner Lending Library was a finalist for the Beazley Design Awards at the Design Museum (London, UK) in 2016. She was a High Concept Lab Artist in Residence in 2018. She earned her BA in Art and Latin American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley, and her MFA in Fiber and Material Studies from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. She is currently a professor, adjunct, at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a board member of the National Korean American Service & Education Consortium (NAKASEC) fighting for Citizenship for All 11 million undocumented immigrants and adoptees.

Artwork Details:

Hoofprint
(McKinley Park)

Hoofprint is a Chicago-based printshop and publisher specializing in fine art editions utilizing screenprinting, lithography, etching, and relief processes. They work collaboratively with emerging artists to create limited edition prints. Print partners Liz Born and Gabe Hoare co-founded Hoofprint in 2012.