Selvedge 106 Identity

With war once again in Europe a reality, it seems timely for Selvedge to examine flags: their importance, heritage, and meaning. Ostensibly, a flag is a piece of cloth onto which meaning is projected. They can mean different things to different people: a symbol of both love and hate, and both freedom and oppression. Flags can unite, divide, and even terrorise. In this issue, we explore how a piece of cloth has been transformed into one of the most powerful symbols in our cultural repertoire. In her article, You Can't Eat a Flag, Dr Catherine Harper examines how artists across the world have used flags to subvert and question our society.  Johann Wolfgang Goethe, the German writer, proclaimed that “a country starts with a name and a flag and then becomes them.” Flags unquestionably stir loyalty: citizens pledge allegiance to, and use the desecration of, flags as a protest or way to express political dissent. Generations of the military have lived and died for a flag on the battlefield.