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Artists in Britain have customised St George’s flags with messages celebrating diversity, in response to a campaign in which national banners have been flown from lamp-posts, outside homes and painted on roundabouts.
While for many, flying the flag is a genuine expression of national pride, some flags have been graffitied on businesses and places of worship belonging to minority ethnic Britons, in some cases with slurs, after the launch of the operation “raise the colours”.
The artists’ response will go on display in venues and in the streets later this month. The project originates in Greater Manchester, where hard-right groups have joined protests outside asylum hotels, posting locations where they have “deployed British flags” on social media.
Cloe Gregson, an arts events manager, decided to reclaim the symbol by staging an open day for artists and the public to redesign St George’s flags as emblems of inclusivity.
The Everyone Welcome project took off on the websites Skiddle and GoFundMe, with more than 100 people and dozens of venues volunteering to be part of the project.
Gregson said: “We’ve had a pretty long history standing up for what’s right [in Manchester], led by the movement for women’s rights and the biggest section 28 protests. But I felt like I was driving around and I didn’t recognise it as the Manchester I’ve grown up in – it felt really jarring.”
The project accelerated after Gregson turned to her all-women WhatsApp group of events promoters and creatives in the city, who shared it across their networks.
Gregson added: “We’d love to see this idea spread to other cities – using creativity as a way of transforming a message that’s been used to divide. We really want to make it so that when people see the England flag in Manchester it’s a symbol of welcome, not exclusion.”
About 70 miles across the Pennines in York, one of the first cities targeted by “raise the colours”, a group called the International Flagging Campaign attracted scores of GoFundMe donations to buy flags from across the world, aiming to create “a cityscape that looks like we are hosting the next Olympics”.
Campaigners set out at night to hang international, regional and rainbow flags on lamp-posts where St George’s flags had already been erected. Their message was one of inclusivity, and when supporters of “raise the colours” began taking the international flags down, the campaigners handed out bunting to local businesses.
A spokesperson said: “Friends who aren’t white have commented that they are starting to feel uncomfortable in the city – not because of the flags but because of the attitude that has come along with it.
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“We feel the best way to show our flag can be flown for good reasons is to see it flying alongside a lot of other countries’ flags.”
In Caerphilly, south Wales, this month a road bridge in Pontllanfraith was decorated with flags from countries from across the world, WalesOnline reported.
In Manchester one artist, Freya Wysocki, was one of the first to complete an inclusive St George’s flag.
“I have re-envisioned England’s flag as a symbol of community: celebrating the welcoming and open parts of modern Englishness,” Wysocki said. “The legs and feet represent people moving across the world, as people always have, the hands reach out in welcome and solidarity.”
Edward Meziani, an illustrator and gallerist, said his flag, Built on immigration / Birds on Migration, was inspired by “the feathered species that have found themselves settling over here”, adding that it was aimed at celebrating “what different cultures bring to this landscape”.
