Six SAIC Artists Receive 2025 USA Creative Impact Awards

Six members of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) community have been named 2025 United States Artists Creative Impact Awardees: Adela Goldbard (MFA 2017), Professor Aram Han Sifuentes, Edra Soto (MFA 2000), Juan Angel Chavez (SAIC 1990–91), Regina Agu (MFA 2021), and X (MFA 2018). These $10,000 unrestricted awards honor artists whose practices strengthen creativity and culture across the Great Lakes region. 

Goldbard’s research-based projects use large-scale sculptural actions and community collaboration to examine collective memory, ritual, and resistance. Han Sifuentes works in fiber, sewing, and social practice to address immigrant labor, citizenship, and participatory making. Soto draws from Puerto Rican vernacular architecture and decorative language to explore identity, diaspora, and public space. Chavez builds immersive sculptural environments from found and reclaimed materials to reflect place, memory, and transformation. Agu’s interdisciplinary, research-driven practice engages Black geographies through photography, drawing, text, and landscape study. X creates multidisciplinary performance and video works addressing race, queerness, surveillance, and embodiment.