National Assembly (material for fifty simulation attempts)
White and red cotton fabric
Two rolls approximately 61 x 9140 cm each, with excess of approximately 40 x 2750 cm
Installation dimensions variable
2015
Installation view: Frac des Pays de la Loire, France, 2015
"The National Flag consists of 2 equal horizontal sections, red above white. In the upper left canton is a white crescent moon beside 5 white stars arranged in a circle. The red colour symbolises universal brotherhood and equality of man. The white colour signifies pervading and everlasting purity and virtue. The crescent moon represents a young nation on the ascendant, and the 5 stars stand for the nation’s ideals of democracy, peace, progress, justice and equality." Text from "Singapore Arms and Flag and National Anthem Act (Chapter 296, Section 2): Singapore Arms and Flag and National Anthem Rules (2004 Revised Edition)""The National Flag consists of two equal horizontal sections, red above white. A white crescent moon occupies the upper left red section. Next to the moon are five white stars arranged in a circle. Each feature of the Flag bears a unique symbolic meaning. Red stands for universal brotherhood and equality of man. White symbolises pervading and everlasting purity and virtue. The crescent moon represents a young nation on the ascendant, and the five stars depict Singapore's ideals of democracy, peace, progress, justice and equality."
Text from "About Singapore: National Symbols":
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In the year of the 50th anniversary of national independence, grand, aggressive expressions and spectacles of Singapore-as-nation are being constructed and presented all over the island territory — and elsewhere through state-sponsored, capital-backed exports of cultural diplomacy. Linear readings of an authoritative, canonised history are being reinforced in and for these celebrations, coupled with the erasure and delegitimisation of significant, if embarrassing, moments and accounts of the past. The historical lineage of the red-white flag, with strong links to the post-war Malayan anti-colonial national independence movement and inspired by the independence struggle of the Indonesian archipelago, has itself been forgotten and replaced with a reimagined narrative that lays claims to and operates through exceptionalism. Where does a symbol begin and where does it end? Where is derision and disrespect judged to begin and end? Are the national body, national identity, and the demos synonymous concepts, vulnerable and venerated on the same terms? Can the nationalism embodied and enshrined within a symbol or the purported ideals and failings of state-making ever be called into question?
In National Assembly, design and geometric components of the Republic of Singapore's national flag are extracted and disassembled to their most basic forms. Its two halves are broken into two continuous streams of rectangular red and white fabric, with excess of the latter accounting for stars and crescents. Theoretically speaking, there is enough material here to form fifty 4 x 6 ft flags, for fifty attempts at simulating assembly. |