Flags of Svalbard Citizens
Part of the Artica Listens 2019 programme by Cristina Lucas, co-curated with Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA).
For Artica Listens 2019, Cristina Lucas took the nearly one-hundred-year-old Svalbard Treaty as a point of departure. The treaty today stands as a singular document of international collaboration. Nearly one hundred years after its signing, the treaty remains a functioning agreement among 44 nations that, while recognising Norwegian sovereignty over the Archipelago, proposes a formulation with utopian ideals of an international commons rarely seen in global geopolitics.
As part of the Artica Listens 2019 programme Lucas created an interactive public artwork entitled ‘Flags of Svalbard Citizens’ dedicated to the 44 nations who have all signed the Svalbard Treaty since 9 February 1920.
The work is composed of 135 monochrome, geometric shapes of magnetized iron. The origin of these shapes are the flags of the 44 countries that are part of the Svalbard Treaty. By deconstructing them and using their elements from a free and personal point of view, we are able to see new ways of structuring the complex world of today. The strategy is to use the physical elements we have in front of us, in addition to our own physique, in order to create compositions both alone and as a group. The experience of playing alone and/or in groups is liberating our mind of imposed rules and generating new, enriching relations full of joy and possibilities.
On 9 February 2020, the Svalbard Treaty’s 100th anniversary, citizens of all ages were invited to use the shapes to compose their own versions of world flags and display them outside Lompensenteret.
Patricipants were encouraged to take a picture of each composition and share them on social media using the #articasvalbard hashtag.
More information on the rest of the Artica Listens 2019 programme can be found here.