Freedom of Protest Workshop

11400 Euclid Avenue,Cleveland OH 44106

20 March, 2022

Description

A facilitated protest banner-making workshop As an extension of Aram Han Sifuentes’ exhibition, Who Was this Built to Protect? the artist has chosen to deepen impact by facilitating a protest banner-making workshop. This guided workshop will include making instructions, a discussion on the privilege to protest, and result in an opportunity for activists and engaged creatives within the moCa community to gather. This workshop will be held at moCa and is open to participants ages 5 and up. Adult supervision of minors and advance registration is required. Please come prepared with a slogan that demonstrates advocacy—that you would like to include on your banner. All banner-making materials will be provided to participants. moCa strives to make our programming accessible to all participants. To request accommodations, please contact [email protected]. Aram’s protest banner-making workshops and the Protest Banner Lending Library emerged in response to the 2016 Presidential election. In the artist’s own words: I was devastated by the elections, as many were. I needed a platform to shout. So immediately after the elections, I started to make protest banners in my apartment. I then started to invite friends over to make banners with me because I needed to feel a sense of community. Then I quickly started to do workshops for the public. Banners are a way for me to resist what is happening in the United States and the world. It is a way to put my voice out there and not stay silent. I cannot be silent. However, as a non-citizen and a new mother, I cannot always go to protests. And 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 have become a place where people come together in solidarity through making. And making is, in and of itself, a form of resistance. A Protest Banner Lending Library, where individuals can borrow banners, grew out of these workshops. The Protest Banner Lending Library is a space for people to gain skills to learn to make banners, a communal sewing space where we support each other’s voices, and a place where people can check out handmade banners to use in protests. The words and these banners have a growing history. They are made by someone, used in a protest, returned to the library, and then taken by someone else to a different protest. The banners carry the histories of the hands that made and hold them, and the places they have and will travel. The Museum of Contemporary Art is a unique and dynamic place for the visual art of our time. We challenge, inspire and teach a wide range of audiences. Our purpose is to push the boundaries of innovation, creativity and exploration through exhibitions, publications, education and outreach programs.