School of Visual Arts (SVA) presents “The Health Poster Project,” an exhibition of posters by 24 students from BFA Illustration, MFA Illustration as Visual Essay and the 2022 Summer Illustration Residency, curated by BFA Illustration and BFA Comics Chair Viktor Koen. The exhibition will be on view from Tuesday, August 30th, through Monday, September 19th, at the SVA Gramercy Gallery, 209 East 23rd Street, New York City. 

From practical to esoteric, this series of posters tries to understand the norms, complexities and implications of a fundamental human right on the heels of a relentless global pandemic. Often antithetical messaging and interpretations hindered our efforts to discuss with some depth of perspective how the pandemic redefined the most crucial aspect of our lives: physical and mental health, on the individual and collective levels.

Though COVID-19 is not the subject of this exhibition, it certainly loomed large over the work and punctuated the practicalities of a world without health, a reality unimaginable in recent memory. While the facts, causes and statistics have been endlessly debated and analyzed, severe, less-quantifiable emotional costs became impossible to ignore. What does that mean to artists stuck with an assignment whose subject is not just close to the heart but in it? In looking for patterns, solutions were found that either went very deep or found comfort in informing, cautioning and guiding.

While simple, direct advice provided solid inspiration, it is juxtaposed by emotional or enigmatic approaches that lead the viewer to esoteric dialogs towards feeling more than learning. Perhaps this resulted from working on this project while in-person learning was resuming for the first time since the pandemic began. Discussing the ever-expanding definition of health and the pandemic -(masked) face to (masked) face, with sketches pinned to the wall as part of these artists’ daily practice, contributed to a cathartic experience with a deep awareness of what they still are going through.

Presenting work from a mixture of departments, this exhibition provides a rare cross-section of undergraduate, graduate and continuing education projects where students share a common theme: research and a quote about health expressed in the poster format. The result is a collection of compositions that inform and delight in togetherness.

Artists featured in this exhibition are Andrew Alexander, Deema Al Tharman, Rebecca An, Lillian Ansell, Bernardo Bagulho, Celeste Barta, Andrea Castro, Alexa Choi, Dylan Chow, Yunyi Dai, Marques De Loney, Manuela Guzman, Yifan Li, Shuyan Liang, Pingting Lin, Madeline Owen, Peter Pasquerello, Arif Qazi, Bernardo Rodriguez, Gerry Selian, Wenjing Yang, Yiwen You, Sisi Yu and Bohan Zhong.

The SVA Gramercy Gallery is open Monday – Saturday, 10:00am – 6:00pm. In accordance with SVA COVID-19 protocols, daily in-person visitation is limited to SVA students, faculty and staff. All visitors must remain masked while indoors.