| If profound intractable problems exist in society, it follows that the professions needed to fix them have not yet been invented. Ian Wojtowicz (he/him) is a writer who builds stuff. His work applies techniques of connection, dissensus, modifiability, playfulness, editing, argument, dialogue, and repair. He has shown work in Hong Kong, Europe and throughout North America, and has published work in Wired Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, and on PBS and Discovery channels. Professionally, Wojtowicz has consulted for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the US National Coast Guard Museum, the Redwoods National and State Parks, and indigenous cultural projects at Nk'Mip and Wanuskewin. Wojtowicz holds a degree in Art, Culture and Technology from MIT’s School of Architecture and is the editor of a collected volume from MIT Press entitled Interrogative Design, on artist Krzysztof Wodiczko's influential design philosophy. He currently lives and works in Vancouver, Canada, on the territories of the Squamish, Musqueam and Tsleil-Waututh people. |
Polish Canadian Flag
This alteration of the Canadian flag approximates a Polish one and suggests a hybrid Polish-Canadian state — a kind of multiculturalism formed from translucent national boundaries. Not quite a "mosaic" as Trudeau famously promoted, nor an American "melting pot," this flag is a subtraction. An extraction. An edit. It is never fully Canadian and not really Polish.
The flag flips between its two nationalities like an optical illusion with two binary views and no middle ground. It provokes a question about whether this alteration is really a "better fit" or simply a violent act of separation, lack and absence.
This design also belies a key concern of Canadian identity: that it is substantially not American. While the desecration of the American flag is a highly charged act, illegal in many US states, Canada has made no such legal gestures. A modification like this carries little risk. However, the contentiousness of "Old Glory" attests to the intensity with which national patriotism can affect the physical world through the symbolic.
See also: David Hammons' African American Flag, Amber Frid-Jimenez and Lucy Orta's Antarctica World Passport, and Jasper John's Three Flags.