In "Roots of Resilience," sixteen artists were selected from a call for applications to design flags that tell stories of hope, strength, and community, honoring the journeys of those who made Philly their home. From textiles to digital art, these powerful flags will fly at Spruce Street Harbor Park from May 22, 2026, to September 7, 2026.
“Welcoming Soon (After Ken Lum and Šejla Kamerić)” is a response to the constant duality of being an immigrant anywhere in the world. On the one side, being cherished, celebrated for one’s successes and resilience; on the other, being blamed, feared, and always placed under a microscope. This flag is meant to poke fun at this special attention, treading lightly towards the welcoming attitudes and piercing through internalized notions of who is allowed to claim territories (as the gesture of planting a flag connotes), or who is “welcomed” into them, even if they are often shaped by the very contributions of those who arrive from elsewhere.
About the Artist:
Center for Peripheries is a collective operating at the intersection of social research and space-based art. It was founded by three artists who stem from Europe’s different peripheries (the Middle East, the Caucasus, the Balkans), but reside and collaborate in Berlin—one of Europe’s most significant centers, and the EU’s (statistically) most populous city—which has throughout recent history embodied the dialectic of East and West. Aiming to explore relations of power and mechanisms of othering within and beyond the far ends of this dialectic, the Center for Peripheries operates through interventions themed around different notions of everyday life, expanding them into analyses of broader political contexts.
