Rec-elections (False Flag)
2017
Altered American flag, wool, cotton
96 x 144 inches
Installation view, Westchester Community College, Valhalla, NY
Rec-elections (False Flag) is a reimagining of a presidential campaign flag that Abraham Lincoln designed and created in 1864 in which he rearranged the 35 stars on the American flag to spell out the word “FREE”. This campaign flag advertised his signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 which freed more than 3.5 million enslaved African Americans.
My contemporary reimagining rearranges the 50 stars of the flag to spell out the word “FAKE” - a reference to Donald Trump’s actual claims to have invented the term, and one that he frequently uses to discredit the news media, political opponents, and facts. The term “fake” is also a reference to false flag operations. “False flags” are covert political or military operations that disguise the actual source of responsibility and pin the blame on a country or individual that is not actually responsible.
Just as Lincoln utilized the symbolism of the American Flag to advertise a possible new world, Rec-elections (False Flag) calls attention to a world where conspiracy theories, fake news and the make believe are justified and obscured by the American flag.
Rec-elections is an ongoing project (2012-) which unpacks and critiques the weaponization of nostalgia and slogans used within historical American presidential campaign posters. The etymology of the word “slogan” derives from Gaelic origins and effectively means “battle cry”. Sourced from online auction sites such as eBay, I alter and reimagine, these presidential campaign posters, banners, and flags and reinsert them back into the public realm where they are utilized in, site-specific interventions and performances, prints, flags and installations.
Within this framework, works from the Rec-elections project resurrect the language of bygone slogans to reveal the fallacy of a romanticized American myth of equality, justice, and prosperity for all.