DC/Adapters

Washingtonians fly our flag all over the city–from official buildings, in commercial spaces, and as a form of personal identification–just like the residents of many cities do with their own flags. But we also adapt it graphically and materially for many different purposes with an intensity that I’ve never seen anywhere else.Not long after I moved to the District in 2011, I noticed a cluster of adapted flags at Union Market, and ever since then I’ve collected every one that I’ve come across and logged them with their location in this archive. What began as a fun side project that helped me to identify with my new hometown has become a serious research project about the social power of the flag, material rhetoric, and the particularities of this network that continually generates more adaptations. If you have questions for me, or you have flags and their locations, email me at [email protected].