This activity can help students make a personal connection to a seemingly abstract theme at the beginning of a lesson or as a culminating activity.
When a white supremacist group came to protest the growing migration of Somalis to Lewiston, Maine, nearly 5,000 local people came out to a counter-demonstration supporting the immigrant community. At a follow-up diversity celebration, I first worked with activist/artist Patricia Wheeler to create peace flags. We have since made them in schools and community centers.
Based on the Tibetan tradition of making prayer flags, a peace flag activity can help students make a personal connection to a seemingly abstract theme at the beginning of a lesson or as a culminating activity.
Invite students to bring their own photos of family, or images of community and nature. Using a simple transfer technique and their own words, students can create flags around a central theme that can be hung outside on a clothesline or along a hallway. Since the flags include personal images and words, they manifest individual concerns and wishes. Hung together on a clothesline, the flags have a collective impact.
THE PROCEDURE
Photocopy images and place them face down on tightly woven cloth such as silk or tea cloth. Place a piece of cardboard beneath the cloth. With a paintbrush, apply CitraSolv, a household cleaner available at natural food stores, to the back of the image. Then, with the tip of a pen (it doesn't need ink), draw heavy lines across the back of the wetted image to transfer the ink from the photocopy onto the cloth. Next, rub the back of the image with the back side of a spoon.
Lift the edge of the paper. The image should have transferred. If it didn't come all the way through, rub a bit more. If it didn't transfer at all, try a different photocopier, as the inks vary. (Note: the ink in computer printers never works.) Add words with stencils or by hand. Or you can reverse words on your computer and transfer them using the same process, again using a photocopy. Transferred images can be painted with acrylic paint, and if desired, sewn onto a larger piece of cloth.
When we make art, we promote dialogue. The goal of the peace flag workshop is to give students with different perspectives and visions a constructive way to talk to one another. The discussions occur during the creation process and continue as the flags blow in the wind.
Carolyn Coe
Bucksport Adult and Community Education
Bucksport, Maine
The Peace Flag PROJECT provides the opportunity for people to create flags to express their deepest hopes and dreams. Learn more at www.thepeaceflagproject.org.
