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Created to support and showcase budding artists, the Art Wall Project is a new exhibit at the Syracuse University Art Museum. Kicking off its inaugural exhibit this fall semester, the project will feature one artist per year, starting with contemporary artist Ivan Forde.

For the exhibit, the museum provides the artist with an unused room to use — currently the first room visitors walk through — and it is up to the artist to decide how to use it, said Vanja Malloy, the museum’s director and chief curator. There are no specific guidelines, mediums or themes to follow, and as a result, the Art Wall Project creates the space for artists to authentically reflect their passion, message and goals.

“It takes a historically unused part of the museum, and utilizes it to create an active art installation space,” Malloy said.

Although the SU Art Museum could only welcome students at a limited capacity last year, it now offers a chance to view the art to everyone, including local residents. The museum, located in Shaffer Art Building, is open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesday through Friday as well as by appointment on Saturday and Sunday.

“Given the chance to see this installation unfold in person over the past few months was a thrill itself,” said Emily Dittman, the museum’s associate director.

The Art Wall Project is particularly special to Malloy because of its flexible and temporary nature, she said. At the end of each year, another artist is invited and the previous year’s installation will more than likely be reset. However, this grants the artwork a certain magic, the Malloy said.

“It may not be preserved, we might paint over it. It’s not for the purpose of acquisition, but rather for the experience,” Malloy said.

Manhattan-based artist Ivan Forde is the first participant in the project hosted at the art museum. He is an emerging contemporary artist specializing in installation, collage, photography, printmaking and sound performance, whose most artwork was recently featured in a New York Times article.

Although the SU Art Museum does not have a set process for how the next artist will be chosen, the museum will be looking for budding contemporary artists — ideally with a SU connection — in future years.

Forde’s link to SU began when his work appeared in the show “The Radical Collage: Afrosurrealism and the Repurposed Fabrication of Black Bodies” at SU’s Lubin House in New York City. SU’s art museum then purchased a few pieces of Forde’s work for the museum’s permanent collection, and from there, Forde and SU continued a working relationship. It didn’t come as a surprise when the SU Art Museum offered Forde the space to commission a new piece of art, Malloy said.

Created with the intention of raising questions around migration and the human journey, Forde’s installation, entitled “Local_Edge_Margin (Syracuse),” serves as a site for people to gather and discuss such important topics.

The Art Wall Project will showcase a new contemporary artist each year in the previously unused space at the entrance of the museum. Surya Vaidy | Contributing Photographer

The multimedia artist’s installation consists of a 10 yard mounted scroll adorned with what Forde referred to as a “meandering narrative across sea and land.” The striking installation was influenced by the poem collection “Eternity to Season” by Sir Wilson Harris, which discusses colonialism using the setting and characters of Homer’s “The Odyssey.”

The scroll is mounted on wooden arches, meant to mirror the ribs of a boat, an allusion to the voyage depicted on the scroll. Forde created the scroll itself at Light Work, located on SU’s campus.

Another aspect of Forde’s installation is the varying intensities of the blue tones. The artist used a process called cyanotype, which replicates photographs in a way that results in various blue hues. The wash of blue is created when iron compounds come in contact with UV light and are then rinsed in water.

Because the sun casts different amounts of light at different areas of the world, Forde used travel as a tool for his cyanotype art. After preparing the piece at Light Work, Forde brought the scroll to Italy, New York and Los Angeles to create the different blues represented in the installation. Paralleling the message portrayed on the actual art, “the scroll itself went on a journey,” Forde said. This technique resulted in a layered piece with extreme and meaningful detailing.

“It’s a work that rewards close looking,” Malloy said.“I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

Published on September 1, 2021 at 1:31 am