Lino-printing JC's Flag

I had fun translating JC's complex flag design into lino-cut... The process of designing these flags is reductive, which I think reflects the conversations I've had with my research participants about the inherently reductive nature of flags which "flatten" individual identity.

I printed the design in JC's chosen colours and posted this photo on my instagram storied, tagging him in the caption. He replied that it weirdly reminded him of Panama's aboriginal people's work and sent me an interesting article to read on the history of the Mola - which we had discussed during his interview.

I sent JC photos of the prints on card first...

His favourites were the following two colour combinations:

Then I sent him photos of the prints on fabric...

JC commented that the choice was difficult because the fabric fibres make the prints look different, but these two were his favourite:

However, after some further discussion JC decided that the yellow on blue background was too "EU" for him and that he liked the white and red combination. I asked if a black background might be the best option, as the Panmanian Mola's have but he didn't think it would look nice for his flag.