MOTHERLANDS: FLAG INSTALLATION

I have created a site-specific installation based on the notion that history happens on the bodies of women. Giant flag collages, stitched out of embroidered flags, cover every wall. Most flags refer to political struggles and sufferings of the post-911 wars. The purpose of this flag-quilt is to show fanatically defined icons in new juxtapositions based on universal aesthetic artistic considerations rather than current nationalist biases and blind spots. The stitching is meant to unstitch the borders we have erected and open up our modes of perception. In front of the overbearingly plastered flag-collage, I have placed three fabric sculptures made of crumpled sheets and dressed in traditional orthodox Muslim garb: one seated, one rising, and one standing. When executed properly, the stuffed burqas make it difficult to be sure if the women are alive or fake. At peak attendance times, I dress in a matching burqa and stand still for a long time, broken up by slow trancelike movements designed to echo our notions of “Eastern” body language and to emphasize the play of hide-and-seek which exists among the flags on the wall and among the excessive piled up clothing whose purpose it is to disguise beauty, nature, truth, woman.

I have made the following flag tapestries so far:
Jerusalem is Muslim, 16’6”x7’5”, hand-stitched flag composed of the following 3’x5’ flags: PLO flag, Iran national flag, Syrian national flag, Hezbollah flag, Hammas flag, Lebanon flag, Saudi Arabia flag, Turkey national flag, Jerusalem is Muslim flag, Lebanese Muslim Party flag. I have stitched on it in black thread an updated version of the photo of Che Guevara dead & surrounded by the Bolivian Army Colonels & the CIA agent including the Bolivian Colonel pointing at the dead Che who in fact was a CIA operative (a photo whose composition uncannily replicated Rembrandt's Anatomy Lesson with the Colonel in the place of the surgeon & Che as the cadaver): what I have done with this composition is make Che slightly Arab, in an echo of bin Laden, & he is surrounded by women in burqas possibly mourning his death & the doctor is replaced by a kneeling woman who in my mind refers to Mary Magdalene images in art history.

Operation Freedom, 15’x70”, hand-stitched flag composed of the following 3’x5’ flags: Operation 2003 Iraqi Freedom (map of Middle East with military insignia), Skull & Bones (pirate) flag, Armed Forces (insignia of US Navy, Army, Marine Corps, Airforce, Coast Guard), 82nd Airborn “All American” flag, POW MIA You Are Not Forgotten flag, We Support Our Troops Come Home Soon flag. I have stitched on it 3 soldiers in gas masks, a nuclear mushroom, Muslim widows in protest and mourning, and other images from the war news today and in history.

Garage Sale, 20’x70”, hand-stitched flag composed of the following 3’x5’ flags: American flag with peace sign, American flag with ten commandments, American flag with We Support Our Troops, Love it or Leave it American flag, American flag with John Wayne, American flag with Elvis Presley, American flag with Trail of Tears American Indian, Buttweiser flag, Confederacy flag (with pin-up), Garage Sale flag.

Kill Them All, 10’x3’, hand-stitched flag composed of the following 3’x5’flags: Fuck Off finger flag, pink Playboy Bunny flag, Kill Them All & Let God Sort Them Out (Vietnam Rangers logo in black & red) flag

The following text is handwritten off center on the flag mural:
I would shed my blood for my motherland, if only I knew which one.
America, tugging at my heart, I would shed my blood,
if only I knew whose blood I have.
You can’t sleep with the enemy, my love.
But who’s the enemy?
I am.
I am.


Eurydice