As a recipient of Downtown Oklahoma City Partnership’s Community Action Micro Grant initiative, Hope Flags soars into success. Visiting “corona gardens” around the metro area, Artist Jarica Walsh set out to simultanteously tell the story and soothe the unease of living through a pandemic. Walsh visited these gardens to collect flower and plant materials to make small cyanotype print flags. The flags were then sewn together in a traditional prayer flag format and displayed to create a public meditative space for collective healing.
“Each flag is a visual memory of a garden, of someone who turned to a gardening practice as a way of healing in response to the trauma of this global pandemic. On the front is a cyanotype print I created using plant materials from their garden, and on the reverse is a quote from them about why they garden, why it provides healing. The intent of Hope Flags is to gather together these representations of individual healing, and create a space for collective healing. Collective healing in response to collective trauma. While we each have experienced this time in our own way, there are many ways in which we have moved together, whether we knew it or not.” – Jarica Walsh, Artist
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Hope Flags is generously supported with a micro grant from Downtown Oklahoma City Partnership & Urban Land Institute (ULI) Oklahoma and can be seen at Elemental Coffee.