Can one ‘settle down’ on a highway road? A mere flag can do. 

“Efficient Tegenwind” is an ongoing project of Heimprofi, which consists of a series of flags hang on abandoned flag poles. Within the logic of flag planting, Krista has been on a nomadic journey flying these markers along the way. Last stop of hers: hoisting two flags “SNEL weg hier” along the highway A50 that crosses The Veluwe, the largest nature reserve in the Netherlands near Arnhem.

SNEL weg hier : is a pun title on the Dutch word “Snelweg” (which means “highway”) and the expression “Snel weg hier” (which is an imperative phrase, meaning “let’s get out of here fast!”).

Public art is characterized by ephemerality, and so are highways, there’s no “pause time” in these spaces. Rationally, highways only count as a way, a medium or means, a route to get there, never a destination. This applies to all roads, but this characteristic is more highlighted with highways with their fleeting signs, billboards, and landscapes passing by, and therefore only existing to change route.

Heimprofi, turns the non-area of these sites into a destination, a territory or land, like “I’ve been here”, a mountaineering kind of moment. Always on her wandering journey, the artist has been going here and there lately, to collaborate with fortuitous or non-fortuitous people, to produce flags. The latter are drawn upon past collaborative projects of painting over fabric and crafting with other people, especially kids, resonating thus, with her public alias “Heimprofi”. Deeply invested in the idea of an artwork not having one owner, Heimprofi is scattering these flags reflecting not only her presence, but also her collaborators’.  Making this artwork not only public by its presence in a public space, but also for its process and genesis which wasn’t done in an artist studio, but rather with the public, in public, collaboratively.

Subsequently made in different shaped flags, no one recognizes them, but with their “naive” like style, we feel familiar with it, like we all belong to it, for its playful childlike nature. Contrary to what flags usually do, which is territorial claim, Krista hoist her flags leaving them behind to belong to everyone, even those flag poles belonged before to ads, publicity, and other purposes.

As opposed to that, the colorful visuals are not for marketing, nor prompting a blind potential thought of purchase -that’ll even make the site dissolve into a product- thus commodifying it, but instead to ponder and generate a land of thoughts to that specific site.

Adopting the provisional ethos of uncommissioned, what Heimprofi is doing is only enhancing the perpetual nature to change function for these flag poles. With this act, these markers became a literal “Playground of the invisible” = visual playful nature + it being invisible in this playground.

Looking at “SNEL weg hier” from a distance, doesn’t it look like a playground with a bunch of car/truck toys, and a semi-invisible flag planted in it? A land for overgrown children? Children tend to be amazed by means of transportation, for being audibly and visually stimulating. And this thought-provoking gesture of appropriation of land, a land that belongs to no one and everyone, evokes a feeling of belonging to viewers. Slightly concealed behind trees, Heimprofi’s flags flutter, not to assert themselves in a site that isn’t theirs but integrating into this hectic panorama. Though, by a harmony of contrast to the flow of cars, and their ridiculously fast coming and going, these flags flutter leisurely. As a viewer there, we’re experiencing a sort of affiliation to a ‘non-land’ whose only anthem are wind’s blowing, rustles on trees and the swoosh sound of vehicles.

After unfurling them, the artist filmed these flowing pieces of fabric, but also, automobiles along the way. The footage is subjective, incognito, captured through the leaves of trees, like an aimless speed camera lens. This surreptitious view enhances the illicit aspect of the artwork in this public arena, since these have been illegally installed by dawn. Flags are supposed to act as wayfinding, but in this setting, it’s a non-functional one, it leads you nowhere but makes your visual field, go beyond the highway lanes, and explore an uncharted land -exclusively intended for signage and publicity-, from a different angle of perception.

Installation assistance : by A-J and Kimiya Jokar

Text : Rania Daghmoura & Heimprofi

Collaborators & fabricators : children from the fabric workshop

Nepal video edited by Kimiya Jokar @kiem_threethousand