The Future is Fragile, Handle With Care
The Future is Fragile, Handle With Care
Raising of Agnes Denes's Flag above Tate Britain
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The pioneering environmental artist, Agnes Denes, who planted a wheat field against the backdrop of New York’s Twin Towers in 1982, is raising a flag, “The Future is Fragile, Handle with Care,” on the roof of Tate Britain as a cultural call to action in response to the dual crisis of COVID-19 and climate change. The installation marks the conclusion of Healing Arts London and the launch of a global 2021 campaign to support improved mental, social and environmental health in the wake of the pandemic. The flag will remain on the masthead above Tate Britain until May.
The installation above one of the UK’s most iconic museums, presented in partnership with Vivobarefoot and Special Global Projects, also represents the launch of The Future is Unwritten Artist Response Fund, established to support artist-led projects which address the global health crisis. Among the projects being supported are two programmes in Iraq, in partnership with Community Jameel, documenting and sustaining traditional cultural practices to address mental health needs among the Marsh Arabs and Yazidi communities. The fund is also supporting a community arts programme in the Navajo Nation, Arizona, which had among the highest per capita COVID-19 infection rate in the United States.
Denes’s flag calls out for the urgency of a global response not only to COVID 19 but also to its connection to climate change (as she has been doing through artworks created over the past fifty years). With leading UN environmental agencies describing the virus as nature’s first “warning shot” to civilizations playing with fire, it is a stark reminder of the need for cooperation across borders and generations. It symbolizes the need for a collective response to these crises and how that can be transformed into a paradigm shift with all sectors of society contributing to a new vision of the world as we emerge from the pandemic. According to the artist, “Global dialogue and action are more crucial now than ever.”
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Environmental Artist