December 8-9, 2018
Powszechny Theatre, Warsaw, Poland

Installation for the Forum for the Future of Culture, a two-day assembly of cultural workers and women’s organizations 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 the duplication of the centralized lectern and banner carrying the national emblem of the existing Polish Parliament. In the installation, these are recomposed into an oval-shaped space of assembly, situating attendants next to each lectern instead of opposite to them. The duplicated banners further serve as four canvasses, that show the national emblem of Poland slowly transforming through white and red wedges referencing the famous constructivist artwork Beat the Whites with the Red Wedge (1919) by El Lissitzky. In the final banner, 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 and women’s organizations 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.