FRUTAS es un evento en español que intenta a apoyar hispanoparlantes LGBTQAI+ de todos niveles de competencia. FRUTAS ha sido un lugar (antes de la pandemia) para personas cuyo primer, segundo o tercer idioma es el español. Tanto si eres fluido o principiante, FRUTAS te da la bienvenida. Se proporcionan bocadillos y bebidas.

En 2025, FRUTAS contará con el apoyo parcial de una subvención del Programa de Acceso Vecinal del Departamento de Asuntos Culturales y Eventos Especiales de la Ciudad de Chicago.

BANDANA de JOTERÍA is a bilingual, drop-in community art-making event for FRUTAS. Over the course of the evening, guests will each decorate a fabric square in response to the question:

¿Qué significa para ti el orgullo como persona queer y hispanohablante?
What does Pride mean to you as a queer Spanish-speaking person?

Using fabric markers, thread, appliqué, collage, or personal objects, each participant will transform their square into a visual reflection of their identity: across language, race, gender, migration, memory, and joy. Together, after the event, these squares will be hand-quilted by artist-curator Gnat Rosa Madrid into a large, collective supersized handkerchief.

This bandana will later be unveiled and flown at a special FRUTAS event at the beach at Hollywood Beach or other flagrantly gay space, as a public moment of queer visibility, softness, and solidarity.

Portraits will be taken of each participant in front of the finished (or in-progress?) hanky as part of an ongoing living archive of queer Latinx identity. This event will feature guest artist Vanessa Viruet.

Vanessa Viruet, a Chicago-based artist of Puerto Rican descent, creates large-scale works delving into complex histories rooted in textiles, including identity, heritage, gender, and class. She’s had solo and group exhibitions at venues including New Harmony Gallery of Contemporary Art in Indiana, the St. Louis Artists’ Guild, Roots and Culture and Circle Contemporary in Chicago, and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit. Viruet has also exhibited in conjunction with Slow and Low Lowrider Festival and Chicago Textiles Week. She was featured in Surface Design Magazine. Residencies include ACRE and the Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia.

Viruet holds a BFA and an MA in Teaching from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art. Viruet has over a decade of experience as an art instructor in Chicago Public Schools. She currently lectures in Fiber and Material Studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, also mentoring students in the Low Residency MFA program. Someday she aspires to establish a scholarship for artists of color.

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Tags: Chicago, FRUTAS: BANDANA de JOTERÍA, Gnat Rosa Madrid, Roman Susan, Roman Susan at Institute of Cultural Affairs, Uptown, Vanessa Viruet