Tuesday 26 May 2020

I am a Berliner

"Ich bin ein Berliner" is a speech by United States President John F. Kennedy given on June 26, 1963, in West Berlin. It is widely regarded as the best-known speech of the Cold War and the most famous anti-communist speech.

Kennedy cast a spotlight on West Berlin as an outpost of freedom and on the Berlin Wall as the communist world’s mark of evil. “Freedom has many difficulties, and democracy is not perfect,” he stated, “but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in.”

My idea is to appropriate this phrase onto a flag designed to be used at festivals and parades.


flags are often used by people at festivals to signal to friends where they are in the crowd or mark a camping spot.

Metahaven:

"Metahaven is a graphic design collective based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Since its launch in 2007, the team — led by Daniel Van der Velden and Vinca Kruk — has pursued collaborations with organizations that traditionally don't seek out graphic design as a platform or medium. Examples include the whistleblower platform WikiLeaks, the Icelandic Modern Media Institute (IMMI), and the diplomatic advisory group Independent Diplomat."



the studio designed a series of scarves for the political activists Wikileaks, who leak information they believe should be public. They say "Scarves are in some sense wearable flags; they can be used to conceal as well as reveal the body and the face."

Flags are inherently political - they are used to signal an opinion, however mild, to others.

Damien Poulian:



Poulain designs flags to represent community and heritage.



In the above project he explores the relationship between graphic design, pop culture and musical movements.  The flags feature lyrics from songs which define protest movements, such as 'Get up, stand up', from the song by Bob Marley who famously protested against injustice with his music.

My flag has a similar idea behind it in that it represents the social and political opinions from an era and genre of music by using a well known phrase.

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