Visual Arts — February 18, 2015 13:40 — 0 Comments

#CapHillPSA

CapHillPSA event poster

#CapHillPSA aims to shed light on the changing Capitol Hill neighborhood and offer works by artists with messages stopping violence, acceptance of others and stopping the aggression towards folks who may appear different. Check out their event slated for tomorrow (Thursday Feb. 19th here). I had a chance to chat with organizers Courtney Sheehan and Yonnas T. Getahun. 

 

Jake Uitti: Why posters?

Courtney Sheehan: The name of the project, #CapHillPSA is a play on the function of a PSA, or public service announcement. Posters are a classic PSA vehicle. Here, we prompted artists to engage with issues around public safety and violence in Capitol Hill to create a PSA–public safety art. The poster format is quick to produce and easy to share both on and offline. The aim is to actively insert socially-engaged artistic expression into the physical fabric of the neighborhood. The hashtag attached to all of the different designs and messages links them together as part of a greater conversation about change in our community. In a neighborhood littered with posters advertising nightlife events, we wanted to create a space for commenting on the effects, implications, and resonances of the changing nightlife culture.

JU: How did you choose the artists and how many are you working with? What specific impact do you anticipate each to have? 

Yonnas T. Getahun: As someone who has been long enamored with the potential and possibility of arts and culture in Seattle I have had the pleasure to engage with countless artists.  I severely understand it is not just the buildings, whose shells we have preserved on the hill, and the rain that makes a culture/city. It is the artists who even when marginalized and unrecognized aim to express the times.  Capitol Hill and Seattle have afforded me friendships and interactions with large number of artists.

With Courtney taking me on to co-produce the project I set out to invite a good number of artists to this project. Further we strategically set out to invite artists from different backgrounds to capture a range of sentiments, feelings and moods.  We also invited artists who don’t necessarily design posters. We wanted to challenge them as well.

Also one of the delights, we expeditiously seized, thanks to Courtney’s vision was imaging poles as areas where the public can view and engage with art.   What if someone sees a poster by John Criscitello or Jite Agbro and recognizes their personal concerns?  What if a new resident on the hill reads a Greg Lundgren poster or Meng Yu’s and reflects on his or her behavior?

JU: What did you see, in your mind’s eye, when you first envisioned the project?  

CS: Community dialog, personal conversations, critical reflections, artistic engagement.

JU: So what sort of dialogue do you hope to happen as the project progresses? Is there a window of time they will be up? 

YTG: The first seven will be up for the next week or so.  We will have more roll out after.  We have #CapHillPSA on FB and instagram as means to center the dialogue and response.  Over the coming weeks we will look at sparking conversations even it mostly sounds cathartic.  Please look out for the press event on the 27th. It will be held at the NW Polite Society’s office.

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The answer isn't poetry, but rather language

- Richard Kenney