The New Union Flag. Gil Mualem-Doron. CC-BY-2.0.It’s been 30 years since the publication of Paul Gilroy’s aptly named book, There Ain't no Black in the Union Jack. Writing, in September 2017, about flags, and the act of ‘flagging up’ or mapping out symbols that define our identities, home and belonging, I come to think, as Paul Gilroy did, that the assimilation of transnational diasporas and migrants is not a process of acculturation, but of cultural syncretism.
So how can national symbols, such as flags, represent Britain’s cultural syncretism? Can we mash up or remix different heritages in a national flag to make manifest, materially at least, this idea? In fact, the Union Jack has no official status, but has gradually ‘fallen into use’. Gil Mualem-Doron’s proposition of the New Union Flag (NUF) was part of the Who Are We? Tate Exchange programme, which took place from the 14th to 19th of March 2017 at the Tate Modern. The New Union Flag was presented as a modified version of the Union Jack, to include designs of fabrics from formerly colonized communities and various ethnic and national groups that live in the UK.
The Tate Exchange version of the installation was comprised of a market stall split in the middle by two flags, back to back: the New Union Flag and the Union Jack. It aimed to provoke discussion in post-Brexit Britain by inviting visitors to choose one of the two flagsand to pose for selfies. Also part of the installation was a petition to parliament to discuss a the designation of an official flag for the UK (the Union Jack apparently does not have any legal status) – a discussion which hoped to include both the New Union Flag and the Union Jack.
