curated exhibition

RaceCraft

Slow. Sustainable. DIY. Green. Local. Anti-mainstream.
These are the ideals that drive the popularity of the contemporary craft movement. But what is rendered invisible in the celebration of craft as a means of social change?
 
Where and how does race intersect with craft practices and craft discourse?
 
The artists and writers in this exhibition foreground alternative practices and genealogies. They make visible the neoliberal underpinnings of the contemporary craft movement. They reveal how craft is marked by race, heteropatriarchy and colonization, and they challenge an environmental politics founded on sustaining whiteness.
 
In RaceCraft, being “crafty” is not just aptitude and a lifestyle choice. It is artful subterfuge in the face of racial constraints.
 
Co-curated by Marie Lo and Sarita Echavez See.
 
Contributors’ works are published in staggered waves from late October to mid-November 2015, and the whole exhibition is archived permanently here on CA+T’s website.
 
Contributors include Kimberly Alidio, Aram Han, Kiam Marcelo Junio, Bovey Lee, Kang Seung Lee, Marie Lo, Tim Manalo, Alfred Marasigan, Do Ho Suh, Stephanie Syjuco, Namita Wiggers, and Kristina Wong. 
 
Special thanks to Jan Christian Bernabe for curatorial guidance; Martina Dorff and Gian Dionisio for research and clerical assistance; and the California Institute of Contemporary Arts for fiscal support.
 
Fall 2015

Urban Landscape 1

Alfred Marasigan

2015 Found objects Dimensions variable Courtesy of Alfred Marasigan

contributor

X

Alfred Marasigan

b. 1992
image description
  • See All Works
  • facebook
  • visit website

Alfred Marasigan is a visual artist from the Philippines. Born and raised in Lipa, Batangas, he graduated magna cum laude and Program Awardee from the Ateneo de Manila University (2013) with a BFA in Information Design, a Loyola Schools Award for the Arts (Graphic Design), and an Outstanding Scholar Award. Last June 2015, he became a First Round Winner (General Category) of Art Olympia: International Open Art Competition in Tokyo, Japan. His other artworks have also been included in various local and foreign exhibitions such as Galerie Métanoïas's Un Seul Grain de Riz: A Small format Graphic Art Competition (2014-15), Metropolitan Museum of Manila's MET Open 2014, Metrobank Art and Design Excellence (MADE) Painting Competition Exhibition (Semifinalist, 2014); and in publications like Fordham University's CURA Magazine, the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art's Tumblr, and Ateneo de Manila University's Heights. He has been a faculty member of Ateneo's Fine Arts Program for two years, and is now an MFA student in the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines (Diliman).

The process of capturing relationships between the personal and the spatial fascinates me. Through painting, conceptual art, and installation, I often explore associations between identity, personal narratives, and myth-making, with context, landscape, and environment. In particular, I like how human subjectivity lends value to 'space' as concept, and transforms it into 'place' as experience. Just as well, I am intent on grasping the essence of placelessness. Whenever I travel via different modes of transportation, I gain valuable insights regarding myself and the world. I treat such experiences as sites of introspection. Ultimately, finding groundedness in transit motivates my art-making.

location

X
  • Born: Batangas City
  • Based: Manila, Philippines

comments

X

Urban Landscape 2

Alfred Marasigan

2015 Found objects Dimensions variable Courtesy of Alfred Marasigan

contributor

X

Alfred Marasigan

b. 1992
image description
  • See All Works
  • facebook
  • visit website

Alfred Marasigan is a visual artist from the Philippines. Born and raised in Lipa, Batangas, he graduated magna cum laude and Program Awardee from the Ateneo de Manila University (2013) with a BFA in Information Design, a Loyola Schools Award for the Arts (Graphic Design), and an Outstanding Scholar Award. Last June 2015, he became a First Round Winner (General Category) of Art Olympia: International Open Art Competition in Tokyo, Japan. His other artworks have also been included in various local and foreign exhibitions such as Galerie Métanoïas's Un Seul Grain de Riz: A Small format Graphic Art Competition (2014-15), Metropolitan Museum of Manila's MET Open 2014, Metrobank Art and Design Excellence (MADE) Painting Competition Exhibition (Semifinalist, 2014); and in publications like Fordham University's CURA Magazine, the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art's Tumblr, and Ateneo de Manila University's Heights. He has been a faculty member of Ateneo's Fine Arts Program for two years, and is now an MFA student in the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines (Diliman).

The process of capturing relationships between the personal and the spatial fascinates me. Through painting, conceptual art, and installation, I often explore associations between identity, personal narratives, and myth-making, with context, landscape, and environment. In particular, I like how human subjectivity lends value to 'space' as concept, and transforms it into 'place' as experience. Just as well, I am intent on grasping the essence of placelessness. Whenever I travel via different modes of transportation, I gain valuable insights regarding myself and the world. I treat such experiences as sites of introspection. Ultimately, finding groundedness in transit motivates my art-making.

location

X
  • Born: Batangas City
  • Based: Manila, Philippines

comments

X

Urban Landscape 3

Alfred Marasigan

2015 Found objects Dimensions variable Courtesy of Alfred Marasigan

contributor

X

Alfred Marasigan

b. 1992
image description
  • See All Works
  • facebook
  • visit website

Alfred Marasigan is a visual artist from the Philippines. Born and raised in Lipa, Batangas, he graduated magna cum laude and Program Awardee from the Ateneo de Manila University (2013) with a BFA in Information Design, a Loyola Schools Award for the Arts (Graphic Design), and an Outstanding Scholar Award. Last June 2015, he became a First Round Winner (General Category) of Art Olympia: International Open Art Competition in Tokyo, Japan. His other artworks have also been included in various local and foreign exhibitions such as Galerie Métanoïas's Un Seul Grain de Riz: A Small format Graphic Art Competition (2014-15), Metropolitan Museum of Manila's MET Open 2014, Metrobank Art and Design Excellence (MADE) Painting Competition Exhibition (Semifinalist, 2014); and in publications like Fordham University's CURA Magazine, the San Fransisco Museum of Modern Art's Tumblr, and Ateneo de Manila University's Heights. He has been a faculty member of Ateneo's Fine Arts Program for two years, and is now an MFA student in the College of Fine Arts at the University of the Philippines (Diliman).

The process of capturing relationships between the personal and the spatial fascinates me. Through painting, conceptual art, and installation, I often explore associations between identity, personal narratives, and myth-making, with context, landscape, and environment. In particular, I like how human subjectivity lends value to 'space' as concept, and transforms it into 'place' as experience. Just as well, I am intent on grasping the essence of placelessness. Whenever I travel via different modes of transportation, I gain valuable insights regarding myself and the world. I treat such experiences as sites of introspection. Ultimately, finding groundedness in transit motivates my art-making.

location

X
  • Born: Batangas City
  • Based: Manila, Philippines

comments

X

A Mend: A Collection of Scraps from Local Seamstresses and Tailors (Chicago)

Aram Han Sifuentes

2011 - 2013 Jean scraps and gold denim thread 14 ft. x 10 ft. x 4 ft. Courtesy of the artist Photo credit: Hyounsang Yoo

contributor

X

Aram Han Sifuentes

b. 1986
image description
  • See All Works
  • visit website

Aram Han Sifuentes is a fiber, social practice, and performance artist who works to claim spaces for 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. Her work has been exhibited at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation (St. Louis, MO), Jane Addams Hull-House Museum (Chicago, IL), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL), Chicago Cultural Center (Chicago, IL), Asian Arts Initiative (Philadelphia, PA), Chung Young Yang Embroidery Museum (Seoul, South Korea), and the Design Museum (London, UK).

Aram is a 2016 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, 2016 3Arts Awardee, and 2017 Sustainable Arts Foundation Awardee. 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 an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sewing is a time-based practice. Fiber as a medium speaks a language of accessibility, intimacy, and time. From its inception, it has been touched. To sew, the hand, armed with a needle, pierces the cloth, pulls the needle up, pierces the cloth, and pulls the needle down. Each sewn thread creates an indexical line of invested time, gesture, and rhythm. As an artist I use this needle and thread to mine from my experiences as an immigrant to address issues of labor and identity politics. I try to unpack these complex labor and immigrant histories by engaging with people through long term projects utilizing varied social practices. At the root, is a research-based practice revolved around collecting materials: oral histories, data, commissioned artifacts, handmade objects, and remnants of handwork. I then invest in the materials with my own hands with time and labor in order to create large-scale installations and meticulously labor intensive works. However, being about invisible and Sisyphean labor, my works rarely suggest finality. The needle is a political tool. It pierces and binds membranes together. The thread that it steers is tied off and remains while the needle continues to bind and mend. In my art practice, I use that needle to stitch together various histories and discourses revolving around the simple act of sewing. However, this act is anything but uncomplicated. The creation of each stitch engages sewing’s complex histories and politics of traditional, industrial, feminist, immigrant, and artist labor.

location

X
  • Born: Seoul, South Korea
  • Based: Chicago, IL, USA

comments

X

A Mend: A Collection of Scraps from Local Seamstresses and Tailors (Chicago)

Aram Han Sifuentes

2011 - 2013 Jean scraps and gold denim thread 14 ft. x 10 ft. x 4 ft. Courtesy of the artist Photo credit: Hyounsang Yoo

contributor

X

Aram Han Sifuentes

b. 1986
image description
  • See All Works
  • visit website

Aram Han Sifuentes is a fiber, social practice, and performance artist who works to claim spaces for 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. Her work has been exhibited at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation (St. Louis, MO), Jane Addams Hull-House Museum (Chicago, IL), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL), Chicago Cultural Center (Chicago, IL), Asian Arts Initiative (Philadelphia, PA), Chung Young Yang Embroidery Museum (Seoul, South Korea), and the Design Museum (London, UK).

Aram is a 2016 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, 2016 3Arts Awardee, and 2017 Sustainable Arts Foundation Awardee. 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 an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sewing is a time-based practice. Fiber as a medium speaks a language of accessibility, intimacy, and time. From its inception, it has been touched. To sew, the hand, armed with a needle, pierces the cloth, pulls the needle up, pierces the cloth, and pulls the needle down. Each sewn thread creates an indexical line of invested time, gesture, and rhythm. As an artist I use this needle and thread to mine from my experiences as an immigrant to address issues of labor and identity politics. I try to unpack these complex labor and immigrant histories by engaging with people through long term projects utilizing varied social practices. At the root, is a research-based practice revolved around collecting materials: oral histories, data, commissioned artifacts, handmade objects, and remnants of handwork. I then invest in the materials with my own hands with time and labor in order to create large-scale installations and meticulously labor intensive works. However, being about invisible and Sisyphean labor, my works rarely suggest finality. The needle is a political tool. It pierces and binds membranes together. The thread that it steers is tied off and remains while the needle continues to bind and mend. In my art practice, I use that needle to stitch together various histories and discourses revolving around the simple act of sewing. However, this act is anything but uncomplicated. The creation of each stitch engages sewing’s complex histories and politics of traditional, industrial, feminist, immigrant, and artist labor.

location

X
  • Born: Seoul, South Korea
  • Based: Chicago, IL, USA

comments

X

A Mend: A Collection of Scraps from Local Seamstresses and Tailors (Chicago)

Aram Han Sifuentes

2011 - 2013 Jean scraps and gold denim thread 14 ft. x 10 ft. x 4 ft. Courtesy of the artist Photo credit: Hyounsang Yoo

contributor

X

Aram Han Sifuentes

b. 1986
image description
  • See All Works
  • visit website

Aram Han Sifuentes is a fiber, social practice, and performance artist who works to claim spaces for 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. Her work has been exhibited at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation (St. Louis, MO), Jane Addams Hull-House Museum (Chicago, IL), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL), Chicago Cultural Center (Chicago, IL), Asian Arts Initiative (Philadelphia, PA), Chung Young Yang Embroidery Museum (Seoul, South Korea), and the Design Museum (London, UK).

Aram is a 2016 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, 2016 3Arts Awardee, and 2017 Sustainable Arts Foundation Awardee. 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 an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sewing is a time-based practice. Fiber as a medium speaks a language of accessibility, intimacy, and time. From its inception, it has been touched. To sew, the hand, armed with a needle, pierces the cloth, pulls the needle up, pierces the cloth, and pulls the needle down. Each sewn thread creates an indexical line of invested time, gesture, and rhythm. As an artist I use this needle and thread to mine from my experiences as an immigrant to address issues of labor and identity politics. I try to unpack these complex labor and immigrant histories by engaging with people through long term projects utilizing varied social practices. At the root, is a research-based practice revolved around collecting materials: oral histories, data, commissioned artifacts, handmade objects, and remnants of handwork. I then invest in the materials with my own hands with time and labor in order to create large-scale installations and meticulously labor intensive works. However, being about invisible and Sisyphean labor, my works rarely suggest finality. The needle is a political tool. It pierces and binds membranes together. The thread that it steers is tied off and remains while the needle continues to bind and mend. In my art practice, I use that needle to stitch together various histories and discourses revolving around the simple act of sewing. However, this act is anything but uncomplicated. The creation of each stitch engages sewing’s complex histories and politics of traditional, industrial, feminist, immigrant, and artist labor.

location

X
  • Born: Seoul, South Korea
  • Based: Chicago, IL, USA

comments

X

contributor

X

Aram Han Sifuentes

b. 1986
image description
  • See All Works
  • visit website

Aram Han Sifuentes is a fiber, social practice, and performance artist who works to claim spaces for 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. Her work has been exhibited at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation (St. Louis, MO), Jane Addams Hull-House Museum (Chicago, IL), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL), Chicago Cultural Center (Chicago, IL), Asian Arts Initiative (Philadelphia, PA), Chung Young Yang Embroidery Museum (Seoul, South Korea), and the Design Museum (London, UK).

Aram is a 2016 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, 2016 3Arts Awardee, and 2017 Sustainable Arts Foundation Awardee. 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 an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sewing is a time-based practice. Fiber as a medium speaks a language of accessibility, intimacy, and time. From its inception, it has been touched. To sew, the hand, armed with a needle, pierces the cloth, pulls the needle up, pierces the cloth, and pulls the needle down. Each sewn thread creates an indexical line of invested time, gesture, and rhythm. As an artist I use this needle and thread to mine from my experiences as an immigrant to address issues of labor and identity politics. I try to unpack these complex labor and immigrant histories by engaging with people through long term projects utilizing varied social practices. At the root, is a research-based practice revolved around collecting materials: oral histories, data, commissioned artifacts, handmade objects, and remnants of handwork. I then invest in the materials with my own hands with time and labor in order to create large-scale installations and meticulously labor intensive works. However, being about invisible and Sisyphean labor, my works rarely suggest finality. The needle is a political tool. It pierces and binds membranes together. The thread that it steers is tied off and remains while the needle continues to bind and mend. In my art practice, I use that needle to stitch together various histories and discourses revolving around the simple act of sewing. However, this act is anything but uncomplicated. The creation of each stitch engages sewing’s complex histories and politics of traditional, industrial, feminist, immigrant, and artist labor.

location

X
  • Born: Seoul, South Korea
  • Based: Chicago, IL, USA

comments

X

US Citizenship Test Sampler (100 questions and answers)

Aram Han Sifuentes

2012 - 2015 Cotton thread on linen 96 in. x 8.5 in. x 48 in. Courtesy of the artist Photo credit: Hyounsang Yoo

contributor

X

Aram Han Sifuentes

b. 1986
image description
  • See All Works
  • visit website

Aram Han Sifuentes is a fiber, social practice, and performance artist who works to claim spaces for 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. Her work has been exhibited at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation (St. Louis, MO), Jane Addams Hull-House Museum (Chicago, IL), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL), Chicago Cultural Center (Chicago, IL), Asian Arts Initiative (Philadelphia, PA), Chung Young Yang Embroidery Museum (Seoul, South Korea), and the Design Museum (London, UK).

Aram is a 2016 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, 2016 3Arts Awardee, and 2017 Sustainable Arts Foundation Awardee. 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 an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sewing is a time-based practice. Fiber as a medium speaks a language of accessibility, intimacy, and time. From its inception, it has been touched. To sew, the hand, armed with a needle, pierces the cloth, pulls the needle up, pierces the cloth, and pulls the needle down. Each sewn thread creates an indexical line of invested time, gesture, and rhythm. As an artist I use this needle and thread to mine from my experiences as an immigrant to address issues of labor and identity politics. I try to unpack these complex labor and immigrant histories by engaging with people through long term projects utilizing varied social practices. At the root, is a research-based practice revolved around collecting materials: oral histories, data, commissioned artifacts, handmade objects, and remnants of handwork. I then invest in the materials with my own hands with time and labor in order to create large-scale installations and meticulously labor intensive works. However, being about invisible and Sisyphean labor, my works rarely suggest finality. The needle is a political tool. It pierces and binds membranes together. The thread that it steers is tied off and remains while the needle continues to bind and mend. In my art practice, I use that needle to stitch together various histories and discourses revolving around the simple act of sewing. However, this act is anything but uncomplicated. The creation of each stitch engages sewing’s complex histories and politics of traditional, industrial, feminist, immigrant, and artist labor.

location

X
  • Born: Seoul, South Korea
  • Based: Chicago, IL, USA

comments

X

US Citizenship Test Sampler (100 questions and answers) (detail)

Aram Han Sifuentes

2015 - 2015 Cotton thread on linen 96 in. x 8.5 in. x 48 in. Courtesy of the artist Photo credit: Hyounsang Yoo

contributor

X

Aram Han Sifuentes

b. 1986
image description
  • See All Works
  • visit website

Aram Han Sifuentes is a fiber, social practice, and performance artist who works to claim spaces for 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. Her work has been exhibited at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation (St. Louis, MO), Jane Addams Hull-House Museum (Chicago, IL), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL), Chicago Cultural Center (Chicago, IL), Asian Arts Initiative (Philadelphia, PA), Chung Young Yang Embroidery Museum (Seoul, South Korea), and the Design Museum (London, UK).

Aram is a 2016 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, 2016 3Arts Awardee, and 2017 Sustainable Arts Foundation Awardee. 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 an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sewing is a time-based practice. Fiber as a medium speaks a language of accessibility, intimacy, and time. From its inception, it has been touched. To sew, the hand, armed with a needle, pierces the cloth, pulls the needle up, pierces the cloth, and pulls the needle down. Each sewn thread creates an indexical line of invested time, gesture, and rhythm. As an artist I use this needle and thread to mine from my experiences as an immigrant to address issues of labor and identity politics. I try to unpack these complex labor and immigrant histories by engaging with people through long term projects utilizing varied social practices. At the root, is a research-based practice revolved around collecting materials: oral histories, data, commissioned artifacts, handmade objects, and remnants of handwork. I then invest in the materials with my own hands with time and labor in order to create large-scale installations and meticulously labor intensive works. However, being about invisible and Sisyphean labor, my works rarely suggest finality. The needle is a political tool. It pierces and binds membranes together. The thread that it steers is tied off and remains while the needle continues to bind and mend. In my art practice, I use that needle to stitch together various histories and discourses revolving around the simple act of sewing. However, this act is anything but uncomplicated. The creation of each stitch engages sewing’s complex histories and politics of traditional, industrial, feminist, immigrant, and artist labor.

location

X
  • Born: Seoul, South Korea
  • Based: Chicago, IL, USA

comments

X

US Citizenship Test Sampler (100 questions and answers) (detail)

Aram Han Sifuentes

2012 - 2015 Cotton thread on linen 96 in. x 8.5 in. x 48 in. Courtesy of the artist Photo credit: Hyounsang Yoo

contributor

X

Aram Han Sifuentes

b. 1986
image description
  • See All Works
  • visit website

Aram Han Sifuentes is a fiber, social practice, and performance artist who works to claim spaces for 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. Her work has been exhibited at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation (St. Louis, MO), Jane Addams Hull-House Museum (Chicago, IL), Hyde Park Art Center (Chicago, IL), Chicago Cultural Center (Chicago, IL), Asian Arts Initiative (Philadelphia, PA), Chung Young Yang Embroidery Museum (Seoul, South Korea), and the Design Museum (London, UK).

Aram is a 2016 Smithsonian Artist Research Fellow, 2016 3Arts Awardee, and 2017 Sustainable Arts Foundation Awardee. 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 an Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Sewing is a time-based practice. Fiber as a medium speaks a language of accessibility, intimacy, and time. From its inception, it has been touched. To sew, the hand, armed with a needle, pierces the cloth, pulls the needle up, pierces the cloth, and pulls the needle down. Each sewn thread creates an indexical line of invested time, gesture, and rhythm. As an artist I use this needle and thread to mine from my experiences as an immigrant to address issues of labor and identity politics. I try to unpack these complex labor and immigrant histories by engaging with people through long term projects utilizing varied social practices. At the root, is a research-based practice revolved around collecting materials: oral histories, data, commissioned artifacts, handmade objects, and remnants of handwork. I then invest in the materials with my own hands with time and labor in order to create large-scale installations and meticulously labor intensive works. However, being about invisible and Sisyphean labor, my works rarely suggest finality. The needle is a political tool. It pierces and binds membranes together. The thread that it steers is tied off and remains while the needle continues to bind and mend. In my art practice, I use that needle to stitch together various histories and discourses revolving around the simple act of sewing. However, this act is anything but uncomplicated. The creation of each stitch engages sewing’s complex histories and politics of traditional, industrial, feminist, immigrant, and artist labor.

location

X
  • Born: Seoul, South Korea
  • Based: Chicago, IL, USA

comments

X