Aram Han Sifuentes (born 1986 Seoul, South Korea) is a Korean American social practice fiber artist, writer, curator, and an adjunct professor at the

School of the Art Institute of Chicago The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...

Life and career

Sifuentes was born in

Seoul, South Korea Seoul (; ; ), officially known as the Seoul Special City, is the capital and largest metropolis of South Korea.Before 1972, Seoul was the ''de jure'' capital of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) as stated iArticle 103 of ...

, and immigrated to

Modesto, California Modesto () is the county seat and largest city of Stanislaus County, California, United States. With a population of 218,464 at the 2020 census, it is the 19th largest city in the state of California and forms part of the Sacramento-Stockton- ...

, in 1992. Sifuentes attended the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

, the

Maryland Institute College of Art The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) is a private art and design college in Baltimore, Maryland. It was founded in 1826 as the Maryland Institute for the Promotion of the Mechanic Arts, making it one of the oldest art colleges in the U ...

and the

. Sifuentes's work has been displayed in various national and international exhibitions. She was the 2013 Windgate Museum Intern at the Smithsonian's Archive of American Art, and is independently curating an AAA oral history collection on craft. Sifuentes was also a 2012-2013 Curatorial Fellow at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Sifuentes's solo exhibitions include the 2015 ''A Mend: A Collection of Scraps'', shown at

Babson College Babson College is a private business school in Wellesley, Massachusetts. Established in 1919, its central focus is on entrepreneurship education. It was founded by Roger W. Babson as an all-male business institute, but became coeducational i ...

in Massachusetts. In it, Sifuentes represents the labor-entailing jobs that are common for immigrants by collecting scraps of jeans from Chicago seamstresses and tailors and sewing them together. Her other exhibitions include ''U.S. Citizenship Test Sampler,'' through which Sifuentes addresses the sociohistoric role of women and the function of noncitizen communities. Hand-sewn into the piece are the 100 civic study questions and answers of the US Naturalization Test. Protest Banner

Her work, ''OTRO MUNDO ES POSIBLE'', was acquired by the

Smithsonian American Art Museum The Smithsonian American Art Museum (commonly known as SAAM, and formerly the National Museum of American Art) is a museum in Washington, D.C., part of the Smithsonian Institution. Together with its branch museum, the Renwick Gallery, SAAM holds o ...

as part of the

Renwick Gallery The Renwick Gallery is a branch of the Smithsonian American Art Museum located in Washington, D.C. that displays American craft and decorative arts from the 19th to 21st century. The gallery is housed in a National Historic Landmark building that ...

's 50th Anniversary Campaign.

Protest Banner Lending Library

Sifuentes's ''Protest'' ''Banner Lending Library'' project was conceived following the 2016 presidential election. Sifuentes was unable to attend protests because she had a small child; she also felt she would be unsafe at such events because she was not then a US citizen. The library is a space where folks can make banners, but also borrow a banner to be used in protest and then be returned. The project has taken place at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum in partnership with Gallery 400, Smart Museum, Comfort Station, Chicago Cultural Center, School of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Handwerker Gallery at Ithaca College, the Johnson Museum of Art, and at the Whitney Museum — where she worked wit
Cauleen Smith
as part of th
2017 Whitney Biennial
s programming.

Awards

2016 - Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship,

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

, Washington D.C. 2017 - Beazley Designs of the Year exhibition at the

Design Museum The Design Museum in Kensington, London exhibits product, industrial, graphic, fashion, and architectural design. In 2018, the museum won the European Museum of the Year Award. The museum operates as a registered charity, and all funds generat ...

, London 2018 -

Pulitzer Arts Foundation Pulitzer Arts Foundation is an art museum in St. Louis, Missouri, that presents special exhibitions and public programs. Known informally as the Pulitzer, the museum is located at 3716 Washington Boulevard in the Grand Center Arts District. The b ...

residency, St. Louis

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sifuentes, Aram 1986 births Living people School of the Art Institute of Chicago faculty University of California, Berkeley alumni Writers from Chicago School of the Art Institute of Chicago alumni Artists from Chicago Artists from Seoul 21st-century American women artists