except its continents, which float aimlessly in a sea of blue, splayed out without their grid to contain them or their laurels to hem them in. Toril Johannessen takes the same gesture of deconstruction a step further – she keeps on the colors of the UN’s flag and replaces the continents with the word UNSEE, suggesting that even the omniscient point of view is structured by some regime of recognisability. André Tehrani’s gesture is not to reduce, but rather to inscribe history on the surface of the flag, as his title states: ‘From Wounded Knee to North Korea: A Graphic History of US Military Interventions.’ All the US’s transgressions against the sovereignty of others are lined up in neat rows, which mock the blank rows of red and white composing the US’s own sovereign flag. Jumana Manna takes a
slightly more myopic look at the phenomenon of obliging people ‘for-their-ownsafety’: the proliferation of seat-belts and seat-belt legislation. Her flag is made from bands of these vehicle safety devices sewn together but only partially, with their ends left to flap freely. What is protection? What is disobedience? These questions, she suggests, apply at every scale of the democratic body politic.