War Flag (2023) 80 years Operation Gomorrah
Functioning as a tragic icon of the 20th century, the bomber plane has been particularly instrumental in the shaping of contemporary society. Counter-intuitive as it may seem, war crimes of an unparalleled scale served as a prelude to a unique window of prosperity in Western Europe. Consequently, the cynical atrocities carried out during operation Gomorrah have eroded over time into a classical good versus evil narrative -in equation to biblical genocide- carried out by an infallible supreme being, operating from the skies above.
Between the 24th of July and the 4th of August 2023, exactly 80 years after the bombardment of Hamburg, "War Flag” was raised at 8 different locations that were heavily bombed during the air raids. Namely, the st Nikolaikirche, Bullenhuser Damm, Borgfelde, Hamm, Hammerbrook, Altona, Einsbüttel and Hoheluft. The raising of "War Flag” at these locations was intended as a modest commemoration of the victims of operation Gomorrah, a marking visible to the keen observer that silently protests the great narratives of history, but in a strong wind may express the ever-present threat that lures within the caverns of human nature.
‘War Flag” arose during a collaborative effort by Michiel Burger and Syrian born Ali Heydar to document personal memories of a non-specified conflict in the middle east. It was part of a lager series of images dealing with war on the individual level and slowly diverged towards an array of subjects such as myths, historic events, childhood memories and other dubious anecdotes. This departure from factual events into the fictional has produced a body of work that functions on a symbolic level, representing the unthinkable nature of conflict as seen from the perspective of the individual. The child-like aesthetic of the drawings serves to emphasize the aura of confusion, naivety and disappointment that seems to coincide with humanity’s gaze into the abyss of its own past.