London Biennale  2006

May Day Event

1st May & various dates through the Biennale

Adam Nankervis Invitation

I would like to ask Artists wanting to participate in Flagging Down May Day to send an attachment of a
sketch if possible,or a photo of your flag(s)if assembles to me,Adam Nankervis.An attachment at this
stage would be most welcome or you can post your drawing to
Adam nankervis
museumMAN
Top Floor
48 Rodney Street
liverpool
L1 1AA
Merseyside
England UK

The flags and your drawings of them will-when i hope to find a series be exhibited side by side.
This email can also be viewed on the Forum of London Binnale website
www,londonbiennale.org  FORUM

Many Thanks Adam
adam.museumman@gmail.com



MAY DAY to MAY DAY
A London Biennale 2006 proposal

The inaugural day of The London Biennale 2006 was proposed by David Medalla in 1997 as an auspicious day
to open and celebrate the return of the biennale biannually. May Day is a name for various holidays
celebrated on May 1. May Day is exactly a half-year from November 1, All Saints' Day. Marking the end of
winter half of the year in the Northern hemisphere, ithas always been an occasion for popular celebrations,
regardless of the political or religious establishment. May Day was orginally the Celtic
holiday Beltaine, the "Return of the Sun". It is the third and last of the spring festivals. Beltaine
manifests with the the maypole, draped in banners ribbons and flags and the sending a basket of flowers
to someones door.


The London Biennale 2006
The candycoloured point flags on Maypoles and the traditionally bannered flags draped from windows and
carried during marches in celebration of May Day has inspired this proposal.

MAY DAY
I would like to invite all participating London Biennale artists to bring a flag on May 1-or on the
opening event of The London Biennale 2006 and over the period of The London Biennial 2006 fly them over and
around London,Liverpool,Berlin and to other destinations where they can be hoisted to allow the
artist a dialogue of their desire of any size,colour wether whimsical,absurd,slogans,emblamatic...which
will be assembled in a unity-cojoined,accumulating in a diverse assemblage in many locations,culminating in
a hoisting of the flags on London Bridge on August 31 2006-the official night of the closing of The London
Biennale 2006.
The flags will then be flown amast in Liverpool as The London Biennale Pollination during a site yet
determined in Liverpool,during The Liverpool Biennial 2006 where all artists will be represented.
adam nankervis
 

Dear Adam I have this image that I thought could be a good flag . It is going to be shown also as a flag in a project done by an Argentinian organisation in the Patagonia. Do you have idea of sizes? I suppose we have to produce it, so let me know. My idea will be to print it in Buenos Aires when I go in April. As soon as I can I go for that lasagna. All my love to David. I'll write to him. Love Marisa

I am wanting to create a banner that stretches from the Sydney Harbour Bridge to the water - with the gap between the banner and the water representing the 1.5m rise in level that will occur over the coming years from global warming. I am wanting to represent this water rise in terms of the impact on pacific islander communities by using the bottom 1.5m of the banner to symbolically show the human effect of this change. I will involve local islander communities in some type of patterning and involve them on the May 1 (May Day) bridge event (perhaps on the water near the banner) as a passive demonstation. I would like to donate the banner to a charity apart from the 1.5m islander section which would be sent to London to be part of the flagraising. Regards Jenny   Predictions 1 May 2006 On 1 May 2006 the Tribal Warrior* & friends will circle thrice Clark Rodd Shark & Goat Islands, & Fort Denison where Pacific Island flowers will be offered. Anchoring & commemoration at banner hung with 8m gap between it and sea level. Tokelau Tuvalu Kiribati Line & Marshall Islands have altitudes under 8m. Small oceanic islands have not contributed to the causes of global warming yet they may be both the first to suffer & the most dramatically affected, to the point of ceasing to exist. * Boat owned by organisation initiated & directed by Indigenous people. I hope my drawing is okay. I decided my time in primary school preparing cut and paste projects was some of my best spent moments so decided to do a piece perhaps with too much information. I can send the original for your exhibition or if you are happy with it. Best wishes and regards with your work and preparation. Jenny

My name is monica de miranda. i do not know if u remember me? I have been involved in the biennal some time ago in berlin and london. i want to be more involved this coming year so please find my purposal and sketch of my flag entitled : European worker's union. this is my proposal for the may day and london biennal. i though i could do another version where the stars will represent each country the artists from london biennale come from. please let me know if you interested in this it will be more of a london biennale flag. i will need for this a list of the countries where all artists come from. hope u like it and let me know how is going to be used. i will make the same version in fabric which i will take around to the london biennal events. please let me know if u reveive this and your opinion of it. thank you very much look forward to hear from you monica de miranda

Gruppo Sinestetico

Gruppo Sinestetico

Gruppo Sinestetico

Dear Adam,

the Flag I am proposing for LB 2006 is a DolpHEn Flag : it consists of a hairdresser overall with a dolpHEn flukes drawing that I first used for SHEren&dolpHEn performances in Madrid 2003 and then in Finland, Germany and Italy, involving persons, sites and things in the poetic of a more natural life, strictly connected with the origins (as cetaceans, Sirens and dolphins, are mammals like us). This year I am taking part in LB with a real plastic dolpHEn that I will bring with me for the performances when I will come to London (June or July) in coincidence with or soon after the Memory of the first Solstice of my life (being born on June 13 ^th). In the year of "M" as Music, in honour of Mozart,  I will celebrate the Time getting deep in the heart of A-M-O poetic (I love) searching for the point when Life and Death meet. The big dolphin (or small whale) coming in the river Thames in January eventually finding Death among humans in London will be surely highly evocative for my purpose.

I was thinking of completing the flag with the signatures of the persons taking part in my next performance of March in Madrid ("in Memoria" of Atocha 11March 2004) so as to form the upper body of the DolpHEn (as in sketch 2). I could send the Flag to you for MayDay or bring it later with me in June or July.

All the best for LB                                          Laura Cristin

                                                                          SHEren

Hi Adam,
Here is my proposal for the May Day flag
I am proposing a flag made of the dreams of the LB artists.
The dreams will be pinned to the flag and on the 1st of May with a bit of luck the wind will whisper the dreams to the Gods, for them (the dreams) to be realised.
Keep warm in the Berlin air
Marisol.

Jo Derbyshire

Caterina Davinio

Dear Adam

here are the photos for the flag.
I think I like most the rain. It has to do with LOndon
love

Flavia Fernandes

Microcosm

London or any large city is often presented as being a microcosm of the wider world.   A blending of cultures  people colors adds to that.   Taking that idea literally my image shows a Petri dish, the animated bacteria sport the colours of  world flags.  This idea could be expanded out but this will at least give you a idea of what the thing is about.

Martin Allman

Dear Adam,

Pleasefind an attachment with my proposed idea for a Mayday flag. 'ENGLISH ROOTS'
My idea is inspired by my current work with nature and my environment.
I intend to use a Saint Georges flag as the backdrop and to attach long
strips of coloured ribbon within the red cross section. These will 'branch'
out to form the shape of a tree. - flag symbolises our British roots
- ribbons are usedfor Mayday festivals
- the bright coloursrepresent celebration
- a 'tree' symbolisesgrowth and our heritage
(the flag should be hung as a traditional banner)
Keep warm, regards
Amanda Oliphant

Mayday! May Day: Helen Frosi

To celebrate May Day I have chosen to represent the

United Kingom with a play on words and a twist on 

colours,with an alternative take on the traditional Union

Jack.
*****
1. May Day, the first day of May, celebrated in many 

countries as a traditional springtime festival, is also

a namesake of an international radio distress signal

used by ships and aircraft. Mayday is an emergency code

word used internationally as a distress signal in voice 

procedure communications, derived from the French 

m'aider (the infinitive form of the reflexive verb "to 

help me").
2. A careful examination of the traditional flag [Union 

Jack] shows that it does not have reflectional symmetry,

but has a right side and a wrong side up. To fly the

flag the correct way up, the broad portion of the white 
cross of St Andrew should be above the red band of St 

Patrick (and the thin white portion below) in the upper

hoist canton (the corner at the top nearest to the 

flag-pole).
This is expressed by the mnemonic: wide white top, 

and the phrase: broad side up.
Traditionally, flying a flag upside down is understood 

as a distress signal; this distinction would be 

impossible in the case of the Union Jack without the 

slight pinwheeling of St. Patrick's cross.The normal 

dimensions of the flag are 1:2, except in the British 

Army where a 3:5 version is used. The British Army's 

flag is the Union Jack, but in 1938 a "British Army 

Non-Ceremonial Flag" was devised, featuring a Lion on 
crossed blades with the St Edward's Crown on a red 

background.
The colour specifications for the colours Union Jack 

(Royal) Blue, Union Jack Red and White.
*****
So quite literally, turning the flag on its head, - 

in both meaning and visual terminology - I have 

produces the "MAYDAY! MAY DAY" Flag - a visual 

inversion of the Union Jack, where white becomes black,

Union Jack (Royal) Blue becomes buff, and Union Jack 

Red becomes turquiose.
This is now expressed by the mnemonic: narrow black top, 

and the phrase: 
broad side down

Helen Frosi

Dear Adam Nankervis,

My idea is a flag made from underwear: a negation of nations, a celebration of human nature and of that very thing that we all love, that we all do, that unites us and that reproduces us: sex!

This is a rough sketch. In the actual flag, all underwear will be white, creating a resemblance to the white flag, symbol of peace.

Best regards,

Andreas Papanastasiou

Herve Constant

The Drunken Boat

I can no more, bathed in your langours, O waves,
Sail in the wake of the carriers of cottons,
Nor undergo the pride of the flags and pennants,
Nor pull past the horrible eyes of the hulks.

                       Arthur Rimbaud

I attach here 3 pix of my flag for the MAY DAY event.
 The theme of the flag is "Transparency?".
:-)

I hope you like it.

Speak to you soon.

Best,
_ernesto

My flag.  It is made out of a square of painted silk and tied to a stick like a “naufrago” that is: a shipwrecked sailor’s flag .  It is red and yellow, not quite the Spanish flat but reminiscent of it.  This is because of my own recollections of school parades waving flags at unknown dignitaries (we always thought it was Franco or the Pope but neither of them visited my home town, so…???)

Please tell me which dignitary we will be waving our flags to (or at), I am a big girl now and would like to know.

Loli Cardeñoso

To be unfurled over a bridge of cobwebs in celebration of

London Biennale 2006, may day project by Adam Nankervis.

"Fascinus  Deus" 
-"The cult of makes it like symbol of the force of the
nature that gives life is not only found in numerous
ancient religions but also in some people of our time.
In the antiquity it was much diffusing in Asia Minor,
in India, Egypt, Greece and Rome under various
aspects. Like raffigurazione of true and just a God
(Fascinus Deus of the Roman), like symbol of a God
(Dionisio and Siva) or like illustrative attribute of
a God (Ermete, Priapo or Min in Egypt), but also like
simple amulet. It makes it came carried in corteo, for
the cult of Dionisio, with the function protect from
the curse, came put in beautiful extension on the
facade of the houses. Tradition that has prolongedded
until the Middle Ages on the facade of some churches.
Still today the cult of makes is practiced it with
shapes rather blande and essentially for proteggersi
from the misfortune. Here it is reproduced between the
flags, symbols of the globalization, in order to
exorcise the speculation on human people."-

I hope that it can serve to the scope. 
Salutes color to you. 
ENZO MARINO – NAPLES  (ITALIA)

marinoenzo@yahoo.it
www.enzomarino.com

my photo of the flag of MayDary, unfurling at the cemetery next to my house on a metaphorical bridge between life and death. More contribution about it (the flag was signed in Madrid, Venice and will be in Mexico city before I will bring it to London in July, and I have made a short video about it) I will bring it with me