Aram Han Sifuentes'
Protest Banner Lending Library

Paulina Berczynski

Chicago-based artist Aram Han Sifuentes' Protest Banner Lending Library was born of her need for a platform to shout her dissent, and her need for community after the elations a few years back. The artist says that as a non-citizen and a mother, she was not always able to physically attend protests, but she also could not stay silent in the face of what was happening politically. She started making protest banners in her apartment (as we do) and soon started doing public workshops. She says:

… in these workshops I realized that there were many people who came because they needed to find a way to participate, resist, and speak up but also couldn’t always go to protests because they too were mothers, non citizens, undocumented- those who would be at great risk if caught up and arrested. My protest banner making workshops has become a place where people come together in solidarity through making. And making is, in and of itself, a form of resistance.

The Protest Banner Lending Library is a space for people to gain skills to learn to make their own banners, a communal, supportive sewing space, and a place where people can check out handmade banners to use in protests.

To check out workshop documentation and see some of the fabulous banners available, visit the artist’s website at https://www.aramhansifuentes.com/banners