July 2013 / Angry Flag
With several other Australian designers we where asked by Meanjin, the Melbourne based national literary journal, to suggest a design for a new Australian flag.
Our response was less literal and more a response to the neglected future, and hopefully more playful provocation than fatalism:
We proposed not just that the current flag needs redesigning but that flags (and other tools of nationalist symbolism) will likely loose relevance as the effects of climate change escalate. After all, how far into the future can national borders legitimately defend against the potential massive influxes of climate refugees? The displaced suffer the inequitable distribution of global resources and increasingly extreme weather events triggered by the priorities of dominant economies. It’s likely climate refugees won’t be waving national flags. The fixed and guarded boundaries of the sovereign state are a fleeting historical anomaly.
So our idea was to combine the term coined for the recent Australian record-breaking summer, the ‘Angry Summer’ and the title of the American surf flick ‘The Endless Summer’, to propose that national flags may soon be redundant due to the dislocating effects of climate change.
The journal, beautifully designed by Jenny Grigg, is full of great stuff – pick one up if you get a chance.
The original 1965 movie poster designed by John Van Hamersveld.
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