CRISIS FLAG (A COLOR-MAP OF FEELINGS), 2020 - ONGOING

Performance-Intervention, 05’39” VIDEO

How can we establish new strategies to relate with the other, when the distancing of the bodies is necessary? How do we not loose sight of our affections? Can colors be a new language to manifest our intimate feelings? Can you see them flying in the air?

Crisis Flag is a performance-intervention of flags that are representative of a collection of emotions from a specific group of collaborators that were living in social isolation, quarantine or lockdown around the globe, due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

It comes with the intention to exercise subjectivity through colors. The feelings are translated into colors and dyed into the textiles of the flags, establishing a new form of non-verbal language to express and communicate with others our own intimate affections in times of crisis.

The Crisis Flags are composed by multiple personal feelings, shared by collaborators living in Brazil, India, Singapore and Germany. The survey was executed via Instagram stories, on the following dates: 20.03.2020, 22.03.2020 and 25.03.2020.

The colors are elaborated from four basic pigments: cyan, magenta, yellow and black. The process of the mixes is intuitive and handmade, and I interpreted the tones and shades from the descriptions and qualities attributed by the collaborators on the surveys. No photo or examples are given, just words. Each color is developed individually, and I apply them in silk and cotton cloths with shibori, painting and dip dye techniques. Other materials can be used when the pigments cannot contemplate the given color on a certain textile, like the golden fringe.

As the world we live in is in constant crisis and we find ourselves in a demanding position of dealing with rowdy, raging, exciting, timid and silent feelings, this work became and ongoing project. I identify my role in this process as a translator, who converts words into colors; as a mediator, who arranges the colors together in a pattern; and as a messenger, while I wave these feelings, that comes from within, to new lands and across borders.

Bellow: Documentation of the flags flying at Bauhaus Museum, in Weimar, Germany, 2022.
Image Credits: Julia Schöffel, Rachael Thorleifson

Above: Documentation of the performance in São Paulo, 2020.
Image credits: Kareen Sayuri