Rec-elections (False Flag)
2017
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. President Lincoln had just signed the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 to free more than 3.5 million enslaved African
Americans and he subsequently designed a campaign flag for his re-election campaign which arranged the 35 stars on the flag
to spell out the word “FREE”.
This contemporary reimagining arranges the 50 stars of the flag to spell out the word “FAKE” - a direct reference to former
President Trump’s claims to have invented the term, and one that he frequently uses to discredit the news media, and facts. The
term “fake” is also a reference to the idea of 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, the deep state, fake news and the make believe are justified and obscured by
the Stars and Stripes.
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.