Refugee Flag: The most meaningful flag?
“If you’ve worn a lifejacket as a refugee, you will feel something when you see this flag...It’s a powerful memory.”
These were the words of Yara Saïd, Syrian refugee when she was describing her design of the Refugee Nation flag. The flag has been embraced by many public figures, from athletes to politicians and has become a symbol of solidarity, to all the people that have been forced to leave their homes.
The Refugee Flag
Taken from: https://designmuseum.org/exhibitions/beazley-designs-of-the-year/graphics-20xx/the-refugee-nation-flag
The flag features an orange background, with a black stripe, design inspired by the lifejackets she had seen in Lesvos, Greece where she had fled through the water.
The flag itself had been proposed for the Refugee Olympic Team at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, together with a national anthem created by a fellow Syrian refugee, Moutaz Arian. While both were not used officially, as the team competes under the Olympic flag, some supporters used the flag unofficially.
Today the flag has been flown at numerous international events and demonstrations, where it raises awareness of the ongoing refugee crisis, and the struggles faced by over 100 million displaced people globally. It has been adopted as a universal symbol for refugees, in hopes that it raises awareness through the design as the flag was designed not just to be a flag, but also to be a painting, a visual object seen all around the world, from the Victoria & Albert museum in the UK (2017) to being in the permanent collection of Museum of Modern Art (MOMA) in New York.
Yara Saïd is an multidisciplinary artist, now based in Amsterdam in the Netherlands.
There have been propositions for an actual refugee nation (not related to the flag!):
Starting in 2015 there was a proposal to create a new sovereign state, to voluntarily resettle the world’s refugee population. At the time of the proposal, there were an estimated 82 million refugees and internally displaced people. A number of proposals came in, from buying uninhabited islands from countries, to new islands to be created with the hope to create a nation for displaced people. The funds for this project would come by NGOs, the UN, and private donors.
By the end of June 2024, an estimated 122.6 million people worldwide have been displaced from their homes, including nearly 43.7 million refugees according to the UNCHR and the number keeps rising every single year.
This is not related to the flag, as it is a completely different initiative. The flag does not intend to put any nationalistic sentiments on it, and it is “a work of art”, raising awareness of the issue and showing support to refugees with similar experiences.
