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Daniel R. Smith
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Seattle Sends a SHT Show to Havana
The Seattle-Havana-TehranPoster Show will travel to Cuba as part of an international collaboration meant toinspire cultural connections and generate goodwill.
SEATTLE —March 31, 2016—Following up on its premiere at Bumbershoot, Seattle’s largest arts and music festival, in September 2015, The Seattle-Havana-Tehran Poster Show (“The SHT Show”) is making its Havana debut at the Festival del Cartel—a weeklong international design festival featuring poster exhibitions and designer presentations starting April 25 and ending April 29. Curated by Daniel R. Smith of Seattle, Pepe Menéndez of Havana and ImanRaad of Tehran, The SHT Show—featuring more than 60 arts and culture-related posters created by designers from each city—will open on Tuesday, April 26 at Centro Hispanoamericano de Cultura. The exhibition acts as a cultural exchange meant to inspire a deeper understanding of one another by offering a sample of contemporary design from the respective countries organized in triplets to highlight the unexpected commonalities between the three politically and geographically disparate cities.
In addition to the show’s Cuban debut, Smith has organized a group in Seattle to travel to Cuba to experience the Festival del Cartel firsthand, as well as to engage with local Cuban designers in additional workshops and poster shows, including a David Bowie-inspired exhibition organized by Seattle’s KEXP, Northwest Polite Society and Independence Printage in honor of the singer’s 69th birthday and release of his album, “Blackstar.”
“It's important to me that The SHT Show encourages a deeper exchange between our cities,” says Smith.“This poster show should be a starting point, not an end point, for all the designersinvolved and its audience. It isa catalyst for future projects and for friendships to develop.”
For the first time, Cuban and American designers will gather at formalized event—inspired by Flatstock—to trade or sell posters. The event will take place at Casa de las Americas, the first cultural institution established after the Revolution, Saturday, April 30. However, due to the US embargo still effect, Americans can only give away or trade posters.
Smith and Menéndez will also be giving a talk about this organized international collaboration at 10 a.m. on April 27 at the MuseoNacional de BellasArtes (National Museum of Fine Arts) in the Edificio de Arte Universal: Hemiciclo (Universal Art Building).
The Seattle-Havana-Tehran Show builds on two firsts: the first American and Cuban city-to-city design exchange since Cuba’s 1959 revolution (The Seattle-Havana Poster Show, 2007), and the first U.S. exhibition of contemporary Iranian posters since their 1979 revolution (The Seattle-Tehran Poster Show, 2008). This showmarked the first time that all three cities come together to produce a collective exhibition.
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