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Flag installations by Julien Celdran (France)

Introduction
Drapeau de Septembre pour le Pays (Haute-Marne, September 2005)
Alpha, November, November, Echo (Nantes, May 2000)
L'Ambassade des Possibles (Nantes, May 2000)

See also:

France

Introduction

The Belgian plastician Julien Celdran has realized several flag installations in France. They are presented on his website.

Olivier Touzeau, 4 October 2006

Drapeau de Septembre pour le Pays (Haute-Marne, September 2005)

The most recent installation by Julian Celdran is called Drapeau de Septembre pour le Pays.
In September 2005, the association Autour de la Terre invited the group of artists Intérim, équipe d'artistes to contribute to the project Charrette - une semaine d'interventions rurales (Cart - a week of rural intercessions) in the 21 villages of the communauté de communes des Quatre-Vallées, in Haute-Marne, eastern France. Each contributor to the project had to build a cart and to move it from village to village, where it was used a stage for the presentation of art shows and discussions with the villagers.
Celdran decorated his cart with flags, all made of three vertical stripes; he designed the flags during the cart's trip, after the colours of the landscape. At the end of the week, the public was asked to select the best of the nine designed flags, and selected flag #8, symbolizing "an emerging field of oilseed rape". This flag was hoisted over the Maison de Pays in Auberive.

Ivan Sache, 4 October 2006

Alpha, November, November, Echo (Nantes, May 2000)

In May 2000, Julien Celdran contributed to the collective exhibition Un Tour au Square by hoisting four flags in the square Maurice Schwob, on the butte (mound) Saint-Anne, which dominates the port of Nantes.
The four flags are the signal flags Alpha November November Echo, therefore "writing" ANNE.

Ivan Sache, 4 October 2006

L'Ambassade des Possibles (Nantes, May 2000)

Julien Celdran set up in May 2000 an installation called L'Ambassade des Possibles, place Dulcie, Nantes. The installation is made of 18 flags hoisted by groups of three on six windows of a dilapidated house. The flags represent a country without either a territory or a government, an image of utopia and a snook cocked at the municipality of Nantes (spoofing the display of French flags on the town hall).

The flags are all divided in three equal vertical stripes. To design the flags, Celdran followed the basic rule of heraldry (metal should not be put on metal, nor colour on colour). Using four colours (red, blue, green and black) and two metals (argent and or / white and yellow), this makes 48 possible flags (starting with a colour: 4 x 2 x 4 = 32; starting with a metal : 2 x 4 x 2 = 16).
Then Celdran dropped the already "existing" flags (for instance, France, Italy, Romania, Nigeria, Mali - but Peru was kept!) and selected among the remaining flags the 18 flags to be hoisted on the windows.
The flags are the following:

Flags used for L'Ambassade des Possibles - Images by Ivan Sache, 5 October 2006 (click on the flags to see larger images)
First row, upper floor
Second row, lower floor

Ivan Sache, 4 October 2006