laboratory of land flags
The Laboratory of Land Flags is a project that aims to reawaken the essence of a ‘flag’ by collaborating with local communities and individuals of Cork City, Tramore Valley Park and the Kinship Project, inspecting and questioning flag meaning, design, rituals, and folk lore. The inspiration for the act of creation aims to come from a focus on multi-species living, diversity, and the decolonisation of the flag as a metaphor for re-thinking historic land ownership and waste management. The community, artist, and the site will be part of examining the expanded definition of the flag within historical and present space can subvert through the impact they have had on society; the dichotomy of their uses in colonialism and also their uses in liberation, social movements and activism. The Kinship Project is a starting point from where this project can emerge from within the layers of this remediated landfill site.
The artist, interested in, belonging and using hyper-linked ecologies as ways to deconstruct narratives around society and relationships to spaces, begins by asking:
How can agency and inclusivity use a multi-species perspective to view what is possible?
What can we alter by advocating non-human agency?
How can a flag or the essence of a flag provide a platform for agency?
Where does the deconstruction of power and decolonisation bring us?
Why do we ultimately end-up reinforcing differences within belonging?
How does the essence of the flag change this?
Images courtesy of the artist: workshops from the laboratory of land flags
Designs inspired by flag workshops and the laboratory research
Images courtesy of the artist: exhibitions of iterations of the laboratory of land flags and the Kinship Project.
The artist with a response piece to the project engagement, currently on display at the Cork City Council Offices.