InterArts is pleased to announce this year’s Aiko Fellowship recipient is Levi Sherman. He will be investigating the relationship between Latin American coffee farmers and coffee consumers in the U.S. and abroad, and will travel to Colombia to collect images, interviews, and other documentation. Using this research, he plans to illustrate the social context behind the economics and politics that have recently resulted in strikes and protests across the region. His aim is to use the visual language of books, broadsides, and other artwork to create a dialogue between the two cultures: revealing the excesses of U.S. coffee culture to Colombians while exposing Americans to the reality of its production.
Says Sherman, “As the project progresses, I will be posting online more thorough explanation of the project, as well as photos of of my creative process, and ongoing news on the entire project.”

The Aiko Fellowship is an endowed fellowship which honors Aiko Nakane, who delighted and nourished the imaginations of artists for three decades at her Chicago paper and art materials store, Aiko’s on North Clark Street. This Fellowship is given yearly to an MFA graduate student in the Book + Paper subdivision of the Interdisciplinary Arts Department. Contributions to the Aiko fund are all invested, and the award itself comes from the endowment’s interest.

For more information on the Aiko Fellowship and other donation opportunities, click here. For more information on Levi Sherman, visit his blog.

Front artwork: PRINT IS NOT DEAD, Levi Sherman, broadsides; Self-Portrait, by Levi Sherman, scratch negative and name poetry.