For this year’s Expo Chicago at Navy Pier, we are excited to partner again with 3Arts to present a 3Arts awardee and a 3Arts Projects artist. VIP will be located on the second floor of Expo, take the stairs near Eataly Cafe or the elevator near Northern Trust Anchor Lounge. 

Who needs a microphone? Who needs a stage? Within VIP’s democratic lounge – in the floor above the Fair – the public is invited to create and build platforms together. Aram Han Sifuentes’s Protest Banners Talking Back offers a communal space for people to participate, speak up, and resist. Materials, as well as skills, are shared to create a large communal banner. In this space, voices are supported and everyone is invited to come together in solidarity through making. And making is a form of resistance. Onye Ozuzu’s Project Tool is a dance performance and installation in which a sprung wood dance floor is built. The audience is invited to watch and/or learn the skill of woodworking and reconnect body, task, and tool. What is learned physically, emotionally, and conceptually during the building process, shapes the ongoing performance. In this time of insecurity in the arts, Project Tool and Talking Back offers the opportunity to connect, work with each other, and stand strong in the embodied fact that we can literally build our own platforms.

Protest Banners Talking Back will be active 12 PM to 9 PM on Wednesday, 11 AM to 7 PM Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, and 11 AM to 6 PM on Sunday. Below is the full listing for Project Tool performances:

Wednesday, September 13 – Opening Preview

12-4 PM: Jessica Marasa and Onye Ozuzu

6-9 PM: Jessica Marasa and Keyierra Collins and Onye Ozuzu

Thursday, September 14

11 AM - 2 PM: Keyierra Collins and Anna Martine Whitehead

3-7 PM: Onye Ozuzu and Jessica Marasa 

Friday, September 15

11 AM - 2 PM: Keyierra Collins and Jessica Marasa

2-5 PM: Anna Martine Whitehead

3-7 PM: Onye Ozuzu

Saturday, September 16

11 AM - 2 PM: Keyierra Collins and Onye Ozuzu

3 PM - 7 PM: Keyierra Collins and Onye Ozuzu and Jessica Marasa 

Sunday, September 17

11 AM - 2 PM: Onye Ozuzu

3-6 PM: Keyierra Collins and Onye Ozuzu

Press for VIP:

Bad at sports's Lise McKean writes that on the floor above the din of the main exhibition, 6018North partnered with 3Arts to create VIP: Very Important Platforms. Aram Han Sifuentes’s Protest Banners Talking Back invites visitors to participate in making a large communal banner.

Chicago Magazine's Jason Foumberg in Embrace the Expo highlights Aram Han's Protest Banners in his "most anticipated high points and [that] will give you a sense of the trends driving the market."

Chicago Tribune's Terrence Antonio James writes about Aram Han Sifuentes and her Protest Banner Lending Library.

Vice Magazine's Cedar Pasori highlighted VIP:

"In showcasing art that was typically not for sale, the fair achieved an unusual depth and relevance. Here was an art fair like many others, but which had also extended outward from its primary venue to take in digital billboards around Chicago (OVERRIDE: A Billboard Project) and the DuSable Museum (Singing Stones by the Palais de Tokyo), as well as a room upstairs from the fair's main floor (VIP: Very Important Platforms)...these exhibitions and events articulated a range of environmental and sociopolitical concerns.

In a room above the fair's main hall, local arts organizations 3Arts and 6018|North presented VIP: Very Important Platforms, a multipart installation behind a door scattered with golden confetti. Described as a "democratic lounge" and "a communal art-making space in which to come together, speak up, and resist," it echoed the critiques of hypercapitalism in OVERRIDE and Food Chain Project. The entrance of the installation's first space was decked out in confrontational fabric banners by Aram Han Sifuentes, Ishita Dharap, Tabitha Anne Kunkes, and Veronica Casado Hernandez. It also allowed viewers to contribute to the making of two further such works. A second room, featured an performance-installation, described as an invitation to "co-create tools to create a more equitable world," in which dancers constructed a sprung wooden dancefloor."