Vancouver Poster Project

The Vancouver Poster Project: Space/Time Continuum Fundraiser

GOAL: to raise enough money for six months of storage, processing, documenting, and sharing online Perry Giguere's unique collection of Vancouver posters, gathered over forty years of postering Vancouver.
+++

For nearly forty years, Perry "The Poster Man" Giguere has been putting up posters in Vancouver, and along the way he's kept a few of each of the tens of thousands of posters he's put up, encompassing all aspects of Vancouver culture and life; music, dance, theatre, film, festivals, protests, lectures, art... you name it.

The collection represents many things: a permanent record of our ephemeral history, a treasure trove for fans and researchers alike, a legacy of dedicated effort, and (as Perry half-jokingly put it), his "retirement fund."

Recently the idea of realizing this unique collection's inherent value, both as a public archive and as a source of income, has picked up steam, as the space he had been housing them in will no longer be available January first. This fundraiser is intended to support the time and space needed to achieve these goals.
+++

With the help of his friend Vivian, much of the collection has been roughly sorted by category, and about 1,000 posters were recently acquired by SFU's archives. More divesting to public archives is planned. A Facebook group (Vancouver Vintage Posters) and some eBay sales have demonstrated the public's interest in seeing and buying many of these posters.

Our plan going forward is to continue the work of sorting, cataloguing, and photographing as many of the posters as possible, building a database that can be used both by public archives and in two related websites we plan to create: one for non-profit cultural history purposes, and another for online sales. We plan to use input on these sites from the public and invited participants with particular expertise to curate a selection of posters  to be shown in an exhibition, tentatively planned for spring 2018, celebrating forty years since Perry first started postering Vancouver. Further funding options will be investigated as we get closer to making that part of the project a reality.

But all of this can't happen without a lot of work, and a lot of help, and you can be part of it. We're asking you to contribute in whatever way you can so that we may realize our goal to share and preserve this unique archive for generations to come.

And you won't just get warm fuzzy feelings for your contribution — unless you want it to go directly to part of the project without anything in return (you could, for example, just want to see more images from our city's theatre or dance history online, and have your contribution spent there). Otherwise, your contribution can be redeemed against poster purchases and shipping for the full dollar amount, or you can choose one of our special rewards, including signed posters by Joe Average and Jim (Braineater) Cummins. We'll also give contributors first option to buy posters when we offer them for sale.

We welcome contributions of rewards—tickets to events, for example—from arts groups and individuals that wish to help in ways other than straight financial donations. We also have a wish list of equipment and supplies that we could use in achieving our goals. If you have any of these, feel free to get in touch:

+400-600 square feet of suitable storage space, available January 1, 2017 (or earlier) (Our fallback plan would be self-storage; not optimal for processing)

+better computer. digital camera, lighting (maybe even a stat camera vaccum table or similar). We're working with pre-2011 computer gear, a 3 mp camera, and available light. We'd like to be able to take better pictures to share with you.