Utopia
2024
Embroidered flag
180 x 270 cm
All images © Fábio Colaço
2024
Embroidered flag
180 x 270 cm
All images © Fábio Colaço
Flags are symbols of power and national identity. They mark borders, define territories and reflect the authority of a state or nation over a given area. However, when the flag carries a message that transcends physical borders, it becomes an imaginary and fictional symbol. In this work, the flag ceases to be a mere instrument of territorial control and becomes a vehicle for the imagination. The text directs the audience›s gaze towards a territory that cannot be found on maps, a place that does not exist in the physical world, but in possibility, in hypothesis. It is a utopia, a concept that, as the title of the work suggests, escapes concrete reality and the political and geopolitical limitations imposed on it. This utopia, unlike territories delimited by borders and flags, is fluid, open to constant re-creation and free from any external imposition. It represents the human capacity to dream of better worlds, to imagine spaces where justice, equality and freedom not only exist, but are perpetuated. By challenging conventional symbols of power, this flag invites the viewer to participate in the construction of new realities, where the limits of what is possible are constantly expanded by the power of the collective imagination.