In the wake of recent far-right demonstrations across the UK and the coordinated “Raising the Colours” campaign, flags have become urgent sites of struggle. Once imagined as shared emblems, they are increasingly deployed as tools of division—signifiers of exclusion, possession, and fear. Yet flags have always carried contradictions: they can incite violence, but also galvanise hope, solidarity, and resistance.
The exhibition “Flags of Diversity” brings together artists and photographers who challenge, subvert, and reimagine the flag as a cultural and political symbol. Working across diverse media, they ask: Whose colours are raised? Who is represented, who is erased, and what alternative banners might speak to a society built from many histories and identities?
Foregrounding the entanglement of national symbols with England and the UK’s colonial past, the works in this exhibition question the narrow definitions of belonging and identity promoted by far-right movements. At the same time, they offer visions of flags as dynamic sites of dialogue—woven from multiplicity rather than singularity, rooted in solidarity rather than exclusion.
The inspiration for the exhibition is Gil Mualem-Doron’s New Union Flag Project, first created in 2014, in response to the rise of UKIP and its exclusionary vision. The project, in which thousands of people participated, transforms the Union Jack by weaving into its structure textile patterns from the UK’s migrant communities and from countries once colonised by Britain. The result is a flag that is at once familiar and entirely new: a banner that insists national identity is not singular, but layered, entangled, and constantly evolving. The New Union Flag has been exhibited at Tate Modern, Turner Contemporary, and across England, making its debut in Worthing for the first time.
The exhibition, specially created for Black History Month, will include works by other artists in relation to flag and identity using participatory and collaborative practices, photography, graphic design, textile art, and more.
By reclaiming and redesigning, and using flags in various ways, the exhibition opens up space for imagining a future in which the raising of colours becomes not a weapon of division, but a gesture of inclusion and collective belonging.
This exhibition has been generously sponsored & supported by Chalk Cliff Trust & Hemiko.
Featured artists:
Andi Baydur, Arti Dillon, Ajit Dutta, Claire Hunt, Denis Njouwouo, Duncan Kramer, Edi Jay, Gil Mualem-Doron, Isabela Vasques, Jack So, Farris Willson, Ally Zlatar, Stuart Tegg, Fausat Olanike Ladokun, Sally Lemsford, Alan James McLeod, Katy Phillipps, Shona Raine, Christina Perry, Nadia Thompson, Rachel Larkum, Sue Ransley, Nova Cookson, Marcus Orlandi & Natasha Quarmby.
Flags of Diversity: Artist Talk & Workshop
Saturday 11 October // 11.00 – 12.00 // Free
Artist and researcher Gil Mualem-Doron presents The New Union Flag Project, a reimagining of the UK’s national flag that weaves together patterns from Britain’s diverse communities and its former colonies. Created as a response to questions of national identity, migration, and belonging, the project challenges how symbols such as flags are used to divide, while proposing new ways to imagine solidarity and inclusion. In this illustrated talk, Mualem-Doron will share the project’s origins, public interventions, and its urgent resonance in today’s climate of rising nationalism.
Following the talk, participants are invited to join the MY Diversity Flag workshop. Using collage, drawing, and fabric, each participant will design a personal flag that reflects their heritage, experiences, and vision for the future. The workshop offers a playful yet powerful opportunity to rethink national symbols, spark dialogue, and celebrate diversity. Suitable for all ages, the session will culminate in a collective display of the flags created together, raising new colours for a shared society.
Please book a free ticket here and let us know you can make it.
Tuesday – Saturday // 10.00 – 17.00 (Closed Sunday 12 & Monday 13 October)
