November 18-19, 2017
Powszechny Theatre, Warsaw, Poland

Installation for the Forum for the Future of Culture, a two-day assembly of cultural workers in Poland, with the aim to organize the creative field against the increasing repression and censorship of the Law and Justice (PiS) led government.

The installation consists of half a circle of scaffolding, upon which five large hand-painted flags are hung. The first flag is that of Poland, which slowly transforms into white and red wedges referencing the famous constructivist artwork Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919) by El Lissitzky. In the final flag, the wedges have reconstructed – “unionized” – the former Polish flag into a flag of a new European Union. This “new union” represents transnational solidarity with cultural workers in Poland, but also proposes a new political horizon for the European continent at large.

Unionizing the Polish Flag is part of the ongoing New Unions campaign, that departs from the current political, economic, humanitarian, and environmental crisis of Europe with the aim of assembling representatives of transdemocratic movements and organizations to propose scenarios for new future unions.