Poster, Poster, Poster—Chi Hao Chang

When I began this project, I started by asking a deceptively simple question: What is a poster? As I dug deeper, I realized that the answer isn’t fixed. A poster can be an advertisement, a statement, a manifesto, a decoration, a call to action, a celebration, a protest, a memory. Its definition stretches and shifts depending on where it appears, who designs it, and how it’s seen. I realized something: everyone has their own idea of what a poster is. For some, it’s a political message plastered on a wall. For others, it’s a movie poster in a childhood bedroom, or a flyer on a lamppost. Every person carries a different mental image, a different association, shaped by their own experiences. Every time someone makes a new poster, the meaning of “poster” expands. Each poster adds a layer to its cultural and social significance. The more posters we create and display, the more meanings accumulate and blur. “Poster” isn’t just a noun, it’s a living concept, shaped by both individual memory and collective use.

This is a wall I often passed by in New York, right next to a construction site. I was struck by how quickly the posters were replaced. (They literally change every week!) It made me realize just how temporary posters really are, constantly covered, torn down, replaced. But even in their short lives, they carry something meaningful. Every layer, every overlap, adds to the surface. I kept thinking: even if the posters disappear, the idea of the poster, the act of posting, keeps going. This wall wasn’t just about advertising. It felt like a physical reminder that posters are always in motion, always becoming something else.

I wanted to challenge the very expectation of what a poster must be. I created a wall of posters, and none of them contained any actual poster content. No images, no slogans, no graphics. Each sheet is a blank presence, marked only by a single word referring to what a poster could be: advertisement, voice, call, message. By removing the typical content, I wanted to create a kind of poster that doesn’t transmit a message, but invites the viewer to imagine one.

The wall becomes a space not of communication, but of memory excavation. Each person brings their own experiences of posters they’ve encountered in life, layering invisible meanings onto the blank pages. In this way, the work isn’t telling the viewers what to think or feel. Instead, it offers an open surface where meaning is generated by the viewer’s own history, associations, and imagination. This absence is not a lack; it’s an invitation.

The installation contains a wall composed of more than a hundred blank posters, each marked only with a single descriptive word. I intentionally placed the words at the top center of each sheet (the spot where a headline might typically go), inviting viewers to fill in the rest with their own memories, associations, and imagination. Though every poster appears empty, they are quietly full: each word becomes a spark, pulling different visual references from the viewer’s personal archive of posters they’ve seen before. This work asks: what happens when meaning isn’t delivered to you, but asked of you?

Me installing this work at the exhibition

This work reflects a core part of my design practice: resisting the impulse to fill every space with content. I’m interested in what happens when a work holds back, when it leaves gaps that the viewer must complete themselves. Like many of my other projects, Poster, Poster, Poster experiments with absence—not as emptiness, but as an active, generative space.

By offering nothing but the frame of a poster, the work foregrounds the act of projection. The viewer is no longer a passive recipient of information; they become the co-author, drawing from memory, culture, and experience to fill in what isn’t shown. Every imagined poster layered onto the wall is different, depending on who’s looking.

Even without content, the wall is never static—it’s constantly reshaped by memory and participation. I didn’t want to create a poster that tells people what to think. I wanted to create a poster that holds a space for people to think. A poster that isn’t complete without the viewer’s mind filling it in. A poster that isn’t about delivering a message, but about letting meaning emerge quietly and unpredictably.