Flags, the talismans of state, country, authority, the standard bearers for sport and its bloody cousin war,
are currently sickeningly ever present in modern Britain. Virtue signalling "nationalism', to right wingers who clothe their lack of morals, tolerance and judgement in flags, using them to fan the flames of intolerance, hatred and anger, in a country in crisis, aflame with global warmed fires, idiocy and injustice.
I'm in Manchester, it is swaddled in smoke and heat. The moors are on fire and have been for days due to some people mourning their friend with fireworks during a heatwave.
Meanwhile the orange men of Ulster have piled pyres of pallets and hatred, burning out homes as a result of their insane bigotry. France is on fire, Spain is on fire, Wales is on fire and on it goes.
Humans fight while the beautiful world burns, fear grows and the inconsequentiality of all their endeavours is reduced to nonsense in the face of the destruction and death of a liveable planet.
The flags shown here are 'pearly kings and queens of flags', Ai Weiwei's monumental button flags from "Buttoned Up' his new exhibition that opened this week at 'Factory International' in Manchester, inspired by Manchester's history as the workshop of the world.
Ai Wei responded to a tweet in 2019 from a button wholesaler A Brown & Co in Croydon that was closing down and trying to find a home for it's stock; 30 tones of buttons. Ai Weiwei bought the lot and in each tiny, unremarkable, readymade button Ai Weiwei saw the story of globalisation, and linked ideas of labor and industrial capitalism between England and China.
“Several years ago I purchased a huge number of buttons from A.Brown & Co Buttons in Croydon. There are more than 9,000 kinds of buttons and they weigh almost 30 tonnes”. The buttons took two years to sort through before being used to sew onto fabric and make the flags.The flags were made by 33 artisans in Shandong and took 281 days to complete”. Ai Weiwei
The flags represent the eight-nation alliance of Britain, US, Japan, France and the Austrian-Hungarian empire who invaded China in 1900 -1901 to forcefully reopen its ports. Ai Weiwei has woven together narratives of industrialisation, colonialism and historic violence into a complex representation of modern history.
The button flags are also very representative of a post industrial, post empire Britain, it's workers robbed and asset stripped, it's people abandoned, deluded by snake oil politicians and a ruling elite no longer bound by rules of state or country, still plundering.
“The world today is deeply divided, with tragedy all around. Understanding history goes hand in hand with standing up for truth and justice.” Ai Weiwei
This exhibition is so much more than the buttons that brought me to it and I urge you to go and see it, it runs until September the 6th.
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