press releases

Here are the two press releases on the memorial winning the design competition:

Press release – free for publication 12 hours CET, Tuesday 11 May 2010

EU flags by Sibiu citizens reach top 12 designs for new symbol for Europe

Bauhaus Kolleg Dessau personal design successful in an international design competition

The international jury of A New symbol for Europe competition organised by the Hague Design and Government (www.designdenhaag.eu) selected 12 designs out of 1400 entries. These new symbols will adorn the flagpoles at the Hofvijver in The Hague for a week; 31 May – 6 June (http://www.designdenhaag.eu/en/node/3123). For an overview of all the submissions see http://www.designdenhaag.eu/symbols.

Among the 12 was a design which incorporates flags made by people in Sibiu, Romania, during the European Capital of Culture year 2007, in the series of urban interventions titled Speculations on Space of the Bauhaus Kolleg. The designer Emilia Palonen is a political scientist and a graduate from Bauhaus Kolleg Dessau. Palonen worked on the design at the Bauhaus Kolleg, Dessau, in 2007. The project website (http://euflagmemorial.wordpress.com) contains slideshows of Sibiu people deconstructing and reconstructing the flags of the European Council – and the EU.

“This design is about emancipation and identification: it enables people to get close to the EU, to disassemble the stars and to reassemble them on everyday objects, a blue doormat and stars that one might find in a child’s bedroom”, Palonen argues.

Palonen stresses that the design was made by people in the Transylvanian town of Sibiu. Elsewhere the flag could be different. “It would be great to repeat the action in another location within the European Union.” She would like to thank besides the friendly and creative people in Sibiu who took time to take part in the urban intervention by a non-Romanian speaking foreigner, as well as the Bauhaus Kolleg and participants in 2006–07 for inspiration.

“Europe is a space of experience, not a mere administrative structure. Being European or becoming Europe is a process of learning by doing. The design I proposed is collective work and it could look different in other countries and times: Europe is constantly evolving and, therefore, hard to capture in a single design, identity or model.”

Emilia Palonen was born in Finland (in 1977), studied in the UK and lived as a researcher also in Austria, Germany and Hungary. She currently works at the University of Helsinki, Department of Political and Economic Studies, as a postdoctoral researcher in politics.

Contacts:

Emilia Palonen

postdoctoral researcher,
Department of Political and Economic Sciences,
University of Helsinki

emiliapalonen@yahoo.co.uk

tel. +358-40-5077198

http://euflagmemorial.wordpress.com

The Hague Design and Government

Foundation Design Den Haag 2010-2018
P.O.Box 45, 2501 CA The Hague,
The NetherlandsVisitors address: Prinsestraat 37,
The Hague, The Netherlands
Telephone: +31 (0)70 313 20 60, http://www.designdenhaag.eu