How many times must a man look up? 2021

Like many I felt a need to create something in response to living through the pandemic. Much has been said about our health care services and our politicians; heroes have been hailed and villains vilified, there has been clapping and jeering, survivors have been embraced and those lost have been mourned. Gaps between people have been magnified, social spaces sterilised and barriers have encroached everywhere. Distance became the status quo and difference appeared in the cracks.

This triptych of flags is an attempt at addressing the cracks and closing the distance. Declarations of identity and autonomy that everyone has the capacity to care, to heal and to suffer, these are not job titles to define individuals, they are basic human tenets.

The flags have been stitched together from deconstructed hospital garments; patient’s gowns, medic’s scrubs and health care worker’s tunics. The materials themselves broken, repaired and re-appropriated. Everything has changed yet still familiar.

The lines from Dylan’s 60 year old song resonate like words penned by a journalist surveying the terrain of the past 18 months. The song became a motivating mantra for me and was the catalyst that flags blowing in the wind could in some way disseminate a message of unity, solidarity and humanity.