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Wednesday, September 26, 2018

Black Flag Exhibition in Dundee

“I regard anarchism as a political and behavioural philosophy with which I identify fully. However, anarchism is, above all, morality and implies a way of life without concessions. In this sense, I would not be so much because my life is far from that of any anarchist militant.”  says Santiago Sierra.

‘I travel a lot,” explains Santiago Sierra. “But entering a country is like going to jail. Borders disgust me – as an idea and as a personal experience. This work denies all of that.” Sierra is talking about his latest installation, which has just opened at Dundee Contemporary Arts. Called Black Flag, it documents his attempts to have the symbol of anarchism planted at the north and south poles. What was the reason for the project? “To occupy the world, I suppose." 

Sierra’s attempt at world occupation started three years ago when he sent an expedition to the remote Norwegian island of Svalbard. From there, he travelled to the Russian base of Barneo which, because it sits on a drifting ice floe, has to be rebuilt every year in order to serve incoming tourists. From there, Sierra’s team ventured to the nearby north pole and, on 14 April 2015, planted a black flag, as well as capturing the landscape in sound and video.


Eight months later on 14 December – precisely 104 years after Norwegian Roald Amundsen beat Britain’s Captain Robert Falcon Scott to become the first person to reach the south pole – Sierra’s minions planted another at the geographic south pole. The two black flags were both left in place, partly as a rebuke to, as Sierra sees it, nationalists who have befouled Earth’s otherwise pristine extremities with their misplaced national symbols.  He adds: “Planting a national flag in a hitherto unvisited place has never been an innocent gesture. This is how colonial processes always begin.” 
It’s no coincidence that the Tayside city is playing host to Sierra’s latest provocation. “Dundee is no stranger to the subject,” says Sierra, now 52. “Its geographical position and its shipyards have led it to form part of the conquest of both poles.”

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