The Syracuse Poster Project will unveil its 2007 poster series Thursday, April 12, at 6 p.m. in the Atrium at City Hall Commons, 201 E. Washington St., in downtown Syracuse.
The Poster Project brings together local poets and Syracuse University artists to create an annual series of poetry posters for the poster panels of downtown Syracuse. The project enlivens the downtown, strengthens the city's sense of place, and reaches the larger community by selling small prints of the large posters.
Each year since 2001, the project has produced 16 unique posters. Each poster features an illustrated poem about the downtown, city or nearby countryside. The 2007 series depicts a variety of downtown landmarks (Hanover, Armory and Clinton squares), harbingers of the seasons (migrating geese, jumping trout and falling leaves) and cultural touchstones (theater, blues and ethnic neighborhoods).
The unveiling culminates nearly a year of collaborative work. Over the summer, the project invites poets to write haiku. It also reaches out to people who have already written haiku for the Syracuse New Times' annual Syr-Haikus Contest. By the September deadline, the project typically has 75 poems by more than 30 contributors.
Roger DeMuth, a professor in SU's College of Visual and Performing Arts, makes the project a fall assignment for advanced illustration students. Each of some 30 students creates an illustrated poster, using a haiku of the student's choice. The Downtown Committee of Syracuse and representatives of the project then select the best 16 of these works for display in the downtown poster panels.
The unveiling will gather the poets and artists, friends of public art, and representatives from the two sponsoring companies: Dal Pos Architects and C&S Engineers.
The poet-artist combinations are:
Beyond the poster panels, the project reaches the larger community by selling 11-inch by 17-inch prints of the posters and by exhibiting a complete set of the prints at a different downtown venue each month. Prints can be purchased at Eureka Crafts in Armory Square and at the Copy Centers, at South Salina and Washington streets. All proceeds help the project to become self-sustaining.
