Beto Shwafaty

Unpredictable Signs of Revolt

Flag, protest banner format. (graphic work), 2011

The work is inspired in a flag originated during a Brazilian revolt in 1817, known as the Pernanbucan Revolt: one of the first known organized attempts to create a (micro) state, to gain freedom from the former colonial oppressions. This new flag re-articulates some elements of the older flag in ways that ‘dislocate an idea, a revolutionary imaginary and its symbols’, asking what would be to introduce anew such aesthetic constructs in a different contemporary urban zone, as the ones we have now, marked by so many contemporary social phenomena and movements. With this new image, the attempt is to think how the abstract and symbolic communication of a flag, and the reading of its basic elements, could be understood in such a new urban context. The images here refer:  new flag(1st), flag from Pernanbucan Revolution(2nd), production and installation views (last images).

Executed at Lampione: Elbestrasse, Frankfurt am Main. Thanks to Jorma Foth and Sophia for the collaboration. See here more information about the project.