Project Abstract

The School of Social Work Art Collective is proud to present our Winter 2025 term project, Dream Flag. Drawing on Augusto Boal’s Theater of the Oppressed and “aesthetics of the oppressed,” the Dream Flag project was our creative way of understanding our social identities by exploring how the aesthetics of a flag (in this case, a national one) can marginalize or even exclude people from social and political life. A diverse group of ten collaborators agreed to meet regularly to engage in critical dialogues around the meaning of flags in general and of the American flag in particular. Our critical reflections drew on the history of the United States and the aesthetics and meanings behind the American flag and each of its components. We asked, “Does the American flag we know represent our dreams and aspirations?” We explored the aesthetics of the American flag as it exists objectively, then painted our own versions of that flag. At our next meeting, we each painted a flag that would represent more subjectively this country’s current socioeconomic and political environment. At our final meeting, we collaborated on one larger flag that would represent all of our sensibilities and what we would all wish to be represented on our collective Dream Flag, entitled House of Cloaca. In collaboration with the School of Social Work FLOURISH Office, at its IMPACT Award event (April 7, 2025), Art Collective collaborators facilitated critical dialogues with groups of attendees while they created their own dream flags. The result of this community collaborative project is a collection of Dream Flags, all presented at this exhibition.