Portfolio
Images 01-04. Protest Banner Lending Library, 2016-ongoing
Felt and fusible web on fabric, dimensions variable.
Protest Banner Lending Library is a socially engaged art project in which I create functional lending libraries of protest banners and facilitate free public workshops teaching people how to make their own. Protest Banner Lending Libraries have been established in cities across the United States, Canada, and Europe, including Chicago, Los Angeles, St. Louis, Boston, Ithaca, Normal, Toronto, Rotterdam, London, and Gothenburg.
Image 01. Installation: Chicago Cultural Center, 2017. Photo: eedahahm.
Image 02. Protest Banner Lending Library at the Zeeuws Museum, Middelburg, the Netherlands, 2023. The exhibition culminated in a public parade with more than 65 banners created and donated by local refugee, LGBTQ, climate activist, and student groups. Photo: Viorella Luciana.
Image 03. Banner from Protest Banner Lending Library in use during the Home Is Here! March to Defend DACA and TPS, October–November 2019, traveling through New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C. Photo: OffThaRecord x Steer.
Image 04. Permanent installation at the Brighton Park Branch of the Chicago Public Library. All banners were created by library patrons during workshops held at the library in 2024. Photo: Thaib Wahab.
Images 05-07. U.S. Citizenship Test Sampler (Made by non-citizens who live and work in the U.S.), 2013-ongoing
Cotton thread, sequins, beads, photo transfers, patches, felt, and yarn on linen, 8.5 × 11 inches each.
More than 130 samplers have been made by non-citizens, primarily through workshops I have facilitated at community centers, libraries, museums, and immigrant rights and service organizations across the United States. Each sampler is sold for the cost of applying for U.S. naturalization, with the full amount going directly to the maker. More than 25 samplers have been sold.
Image 05. Installation: Asian Arts Initiative, 2018. Photo: Andrew Tran.
Image 06. Question Number 53 by Karina, 2014. Photo: Jayson Cheung.
Image 07. Question Number 78 by Lidice, 2014. Photo: Jayson Cheung.
Image 08. To Ward off Authorities (Go Away!), 2022
Hand-appliquéd satin on habotai silk, each curtain 144 × 88 inches.
This work was made in response to the ongoing deportation of immigrants and warrantless entries by authorities. The text is adapted from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center’s Red Card statement, which asserts constitutional rights when confronted by police or ICE, particularly in the home. These rights apply to everyone living in the United States.
Image 08. Installation: moCa Cleveland, 2022. Photo: Field Studio.
Images 09-10. Official Unofficial Voting Station: Voting for All Who Legally Can’t, 2016, 2020, 2022, 2024, dimensions variable.
Official Unofficial Voting Station is open to all, including those who are legally excluded from voting in U.S. elections, offering everyone the opportunity to cast a symbolic vote. Across its iterations, I have collaborated with more than 50 artists, activists, and organizations to create over 75 imaginative voting stations in cities throughout the United States and Mexico, where more than 15,000 people have cast symbolic votes.
Image 09. Voting station created in collaboration with Brandon Bullard at the Heidelberg Project, Detroit, 2016. Photo: Brandon Bullard.
Image 10. Installation at Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Chicago, 2016, in collaboration with Lise Haller Baggesen. Photo: Tonika Johnson.
Images 11-12, Messages to Our Neighbors, 2021.
Digitally printed vinyl, 28 billboards, approximately 14 × 48 feet each.
Throughout the summer of 2021, I worked with high school youth in the Mural Arts Education program to create banners exploring citizenship, immigration, and belonging. The banners became a series of 28 billboards installed throughout Philadelphia that fall. Each featured phrases and slogans expressing young people’s experiences of immigration and their questions, sentiments, and aspirations for the world.
Image 11. Billboard by Audrey, age 16. Photo: Steve Weinik.
Image 12. Billboard by MJ and Gideon, both age 16. Photo: Steve Weinik.
Images 13-14. Protest Garment Lab, 2019-ongoing.
Materials and dimensions variable.
For Protest Garment Lab, I collaborate with artists, fashion designers, and makers to create garments with hidden appendages and pockets that unfold into protest banners. The garments are designed to protect the wearer through concealment, while creating a moment of transformation as they shift from everyday clothing into tools for protest. Through this transformation, the garments aim to embolden the wearer and amplify their voice.
Image 13. Ni Una Más, Ni Una Menos in collaboration with Miranda Betancourt, 2021. Photo and video: Milo Mendoza.
Image 14. Capitalism Sucks: Empty Your Deep Pockets, in collaboration with Eric Guy, 2021. Photo and video: Milo Mendoza.
Images 15-18. Citizenship for All: Storytelling through Nonggi Making, 2023-ongoing.
Cotton and vinyl fabrics, ink, paint, and mixed media. Small nonggi: approximately 51 × 39 inches; large nonggi: approximately 92 × 54 inches.
Created in collaboration with HANA Center, this ongoing social practice project engages multigenerational Korean, Asian American, multiethnic, and immigrant communities in making nonggi (농기), large fabric banners rooted in Korean agricultural communities and traditions of collective gathering. Since 2023, we have facilitated more than 80 workshops, resulting in over 130 completed nonggi, with new nonggi continuing to be made. Through workshops, participants create nonggi that carry their stories, hopes, demands, and calls for change into public space. The nonggi move beyond the workshops into community gatherings, protests, and meetings with lawmakers, carrying participants’ voices and demands into civic and public spaces.
Image 15. Nonggi-making workshop, 2025. Photo: Aram Han Sifuentes.
Image 16. Nonggi created by high school students in HANA Center’s After School Matters program, 2023. Photo: Odette Stout.
mage 17. Outdoor nonggi installation and community storytelling event at Jane Addams Hull-House Museum, Chicago, 2025. Photo: Sarah Larson.
Image 18. Katie Chung roller skating with a nonggi at the opening of the APIDA Arts Festival, Chicago, 2023. Photo: Anthony Nguyen.
Images 19–20. Current Research: Backstrap Weaving, 2022–ongoing.
My current research centers on backstrap weaving traditions in Hansan, South Korea, and Chiapas, Mexico. Since 2022, I have studied Maya backstrap weaving and brocade techniques with master weaver Marcela Gómez Díaz from San Andrés Larráinzar, returning regularly to continue my training with her. I have also trained as a successor in Korean mosi weaving, where brocade techniques were lost generations ago and survive primarily through written records. While these are distinct cultural traditions, the brocade techniques I have learned from Marcela have opened new ways for me to approach these archival traces and explore the reconstruction of lost Korean techniques through making.
Image 19. Testing traditional Korean patterns on a backstrap loom in Chiapas, Mexico, using brocade techniques learned from Marcela Gómez Díaz of San Andrés Larráinzar. Photo: Aram Han Sifuentes.
Image 20. Aram Han Sifuentes weaving on a Korean backstrap loom in Chicago. Photo: Roberto Sifuentes.