White Flag (Investigation of particular places)
2014. The Hague.
material: wood and textile
insertions
An attempt of carrying a white flag through The Hague
Flags
are generally used to mark and claim territories. The white flag is
part of The Hague Convention. For many centuries it has been a symbol
for surrender, the offer to negotiate, and to mark the act of
transporting the wounded from a battle field and thus requiring
ceasefire.
The Hague is described and branded as 'The City of
Peace and Justice', being home to the International Court of Justice and
The Permanent Court of Arbitration. They are located in the Peace
Palace, a building dating back to 1914. Probably due to several
international and institutional bodies, the city of The Hague is to an
exceptional extent covered and monitored by surveillance cameras and
police patrols. Despite of these international and juridical
institutions, there have never been as many armed conflicts worldwide as
nowadays.
Here in The Hague, the white flag is proposed to
function as an insertion. It appears as a blank canvas and unwritten
sheet of paper and highlights certain areas. As soon as leaving the studio, the flag started to cause immediate reactions, e.g. by security personnel next
door: 'Are you from Greenpeace? Go away!'
Site selection is a
crucial process. Robert Smithson used the term in the 1960ies when he
described his process of selecting a site: 'I'm interested in making a
point in a designated area....the fringes or boundaries of the
designation are always open.' In The Hague, sites for the flag were
chosen based on a personal sensation of alienation, contradiction and
juxtaposition – atmospheres causing disbelief, unease and the immediate
wish to react.
Amongst the selected sites are:
- the former
storage space of the files collected on the case of war crime in former
Yugoslavia, now an office space, an exhibition space for the art
festival, and changing rooms for the surfing community
- the dunes of
Kijkduin, being on one hand a large fresh water filter, on the other
hand the area of the Atlantic wall defense system with a huge amount of
bunkers right underneath the surface, clearly being visible as document
of recent Euorpean history
- the beach undergoing a complete
renovation after the summer season, with cargo ships waiting on the
horizon to sail into the harbour of Rotterdam – a state of constant flux
and economic turnover
- the office blocks next to the central train
station being relatively new yet empty and disused despite of their
location right in the middle of the city
- the European lawn, the only official meeting place for demonstrations
- a busy square surrounded by a heavily guarded embassy, a shopping mall, popular cafes
- and of course the Peace Palace
Thank you to The Danish Arts Foundation for their support, and to people in The Hague at DCR, wander and Satellietgroep.
