More Than One Way to Fold Flag
Nylon fabric (2007)
Ian Wojtowicz
The above flag is an expression of a hybrid Polish-Canadian state, be it nation-state or state of mind. This modification of the Canadian flag uncovers a key aspect of Canadian identity: that it is substantially not American. The American flag is held up as a virtually sacred artifact amongt the country's population. Laws banning the desecration of "Old Glory" have passed in almost every state and a long history of attempted constitutional ammendments attest to the intensitity with which patriotism affects the physical world through a symbolic world. Canada has made no such legal gestures governing its own flag, allowing for modifications like this without repercussion.
The mixing of Polish and Canadian symbols above also suggests a new kind of multiculturalism. Not quite a "tapestry" (as Trudeau famously claimed), nor an American "melting pot", this flag is a symbolic hybrid and a material alteration. Never fully Canadian and never purely Polish, this image flips between its two nationalities like an optical illusion with two overlapping states and no middle ground. This "alteration" gives rise to inquiries about whether it is actually a "better fit" while embodying a violent act of separation, lack and absence.
