Two posters proclaiming 1992 as the Year of the American Indian will be unveiled in Green Bay, Wisconsin, June 23 at a reception in the Radisson Inn on the Oneida Indian Reservation.
The four-color posters are the first two of a series of four posters that will be issued by the Bureau of Indian Affairs in conjunction with a proclamation issued in March by President Bush designating 1992 as the Year of the American Indian. It is the first time in history that such a proclamation has honored the American Indian people.
The posters will be unveiled at 7 p.m. at a reception from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Radisson, hosted by the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin, the Stockbridge-Munsee Band of Mohicans, the Menominee Nation, and the Great Lakes Inter-Tribal Council. The event will be held in conjunction with a meeting of the 43-member Advisory Task Force on the Reorganization of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
All of the posters are designed with a theme of "The Spirit Lives." One of those to be unveiled in Green Bay features two original graphics by young Indian artist and fashion designer Robert Bowers, a student at the Institute of American Indian Arts in Santa Fe, N.M~ He graphically builds on the poster series theme with two silhouetted Indians -- one in a dancer's costume with arms aloft and the other in a cap and gown raising a diploma -- and in Bowers' words "standing strong in tradition and at the same time striving for education." Bowers, a Umatilla-Yakima Indian from Portland, Oregon, will be present when his poster is unveiled.
The other poster features a four-color adaptation of the Year of the American Indian logo with seven fanned feathers surrounded by an arch with the repeated words, "The Spirit Lives." Beneath is printed the numbers 1992 and within the numbers are the names of all Indian tribes in the country.
Two other posters, both also created and designed by the Native Images Department at the Institute of American Indian Arts, will feature two original art works by former students at the school and will be issued in August. Congress passed Public Law 102-188 earlier this year, asking the President to declare 1992 as the Year of the American Indian. His proclamation reads in part, "this year gives us the opportunity to recognize the special place that American Indians hold in our society, to affirm the right of Indian tribes to exist as sovereign entities, and to seek greater mutual understanding and trust.''
