Flag the Earth
Earth: Projections 50 Years after Earth Art, Cornell AAP, 2019
Project Team:
Rania Ghosn + El Hadi Jazairy
Reid Fellenbaum, with Anna Canny
Venue:
Rand Hall, Cornell University College of Architecture, Art, and Planning
Ithaca, NY
Curator:
Tao DuFour
Flag the Earth is a performance installation calling for cultural institutions to act in response to the climate crisis. The flag was raised on the roof of Cornell University’s Rand Hall for the 2019 Global Climate Strike, and later accompanied protesters through campus to the Ithaca strike. Touchdown, Cornell’s unofficial mascot, raised the main flag and read the project’s declaration.
The flag visualizes the planet’s carbon budget as three concentric circles. Their widths represent CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels between 1850 and 2018; the remaining allowance before reaching the 2°C benchmark; and the emissions that would result if fossil-fuel corporations burned all the reserves they currently hold.
Flag the Earth was supported by Cornell AAP’s Fall 2019 Preston Thomas Memorial Lecture Series, “EARTH: Projections 50 Years After Earth Art.”
Click for more information about the Act as if Our House Is on Fire project.