The surge of national optimism that marked the advent of New Labour in 1997 brought a revival of positive, if largely retro, references to the flag: Britpop, Noel Gallagher?s guitar, that Geri Halliwell dress.
How to resolve the flag question came to me last October, as I landed at a grey, cloudy Heathrow. As I looked out of the oval window, I imagined a centrifugal explosion of red, white and blue paint covering the stadium floor, to celebrate the anarchy and diversity of British pop art, and by extension the energy and multiplicity of contemporary British culture. The stripes would be formed by ramps covered with humble newspaper. On closer inspection, the text would quietly celebrate the British literary imagination, quotations from everyone from Chaucer and Shakespeare to Carol Ann Duffy.
The largest spin painting ever reproduced required one of Britain?s most celebrated living artists. If any icon could hold its own in this context, it would be Damien Hirst. I had found the answer: now I had to make it happen.
Last November, full of trepidation and armed with a budget of just ?1 for use of Damien?s work, I sent him my proposal. The project caught his imagination immediately. His artwork from which my design was formed is called Beautiful Union Jack Celebratory Patriotic Olympic Explosion in an Electric Storm Painting (2012). Damien?s titles never fail to hit home.
His studios are on the same street as mine in Peckham, south London, and throughout the spring, the work flowed between his team and mine. To transform each centimetre of his painting into a stadium-sized print, 176 photographs first had to be taken. Graphic designers then worked for three months to prepare super-high-resolution files for printing each coloured tile.
When the day of the Closing Ceremony arrives, it?s all hands on deck to get the stage ready, and my hands are soon covered in blisters. The hourly-updated weather forecast predicts a thunderstorm at 7pm, to coincide with the start of the pre-show. Mercifully, we are spared the rain, and the final printed segment of the flag goes down moments before the gates open.
As I take my seat in the crowd, at last I get my first chance to view the design from the perspective of the audience as they arrive: and all at once it reads, to me, as an exuberant expression of love for our beautiful, diverse culture, and I am filled with hope ? that this work might just have played some part in taking us a step closer to a more functional relationship with our flag.
Es Devlin was Designer for the Closing Ceremony of the London 2012 Olympic Games
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